Artist Interviews

Q&A: Evi Vine

By | Published on Wednesday 6 July 2011

Evi Vine

Singer, songwriter, and purveyor of the finest in smoky folk-noir this side of Montmartre, Evi Vine released her self-funded debut LP ‘And So The Morning Comes’ a couple of months ago.

Alongside a video for haunting strings-led track ‘For The Dreamers‘ put together by ‘Fight Club’ and ‘The Matrix’ special effects chief Nick Brooks, the record also includes a guest collaboration with Florence And The Machine harpist Tom Moth. Evi plays almost all the other instruments featured on the album herself, and recorded it with collaborator Steve Hill at her home in Kent in Winter 2009.

Evi is currently in the midst of a string of summer festival appearances, the next of which will be at Latitude, with subsequent slots also booked at Wilderness and Croissant Neuf. Ahead of a show at Vibe Bar on London’s Brick Lane this coming Sunday, we asked Evi to proffer her answers to our Same Six Questions.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
My mother’s family were all very musical. She herself had a magnificent voice and played guitar, and my four uncles had a band called The McManus Brothers and I spent a great deal of time with them. They were my heroes. So, it’s in the blood I guess.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
The songs were written over an extended period of time, but belong to the same body of work. A few are reworks of older songs, like ‘Inside Her’, while others were newer, including ‘All The Beauty’ and ‘For The Dreamers’. Some belong to a time that was very dark, which is why it was so important for us to record them now, and with a new kind of shimmering textural open sound, to bring some light in. Hence the title ‘And So The Morning Comes’.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Sometimes it’s very automatic. There is a need to put pen to paper, and exercise whatever it is I’m feeling, or a story that comes from an unknown source. But other times it’s about agonising over the simplest of chords or themes. It can drive you quite mad at times.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Arvo Part, Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, Bon Iver, more recently Warpaint, and anything ever by Massive Attack.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
We have been told that the music is very private, something of a listening ‘experience’ without sounding too contrived, so I think lights off, phone off and just take 50 minutes to listen.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
We’re proud to release the record and hope it is received well. But I think we just want to keep making music, start the second record and play some lovely shows, and keep on learning and progressing. It can be hard as an independent artist, so we take one day at a time and keep working hard and hopefully it leads us to some amazing places.

MORE>> www.evivine.com



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