Last night, my tour for Pastoral culminated in a performance at the Myrtle, Marvel and Maud cinema in Walthamstow. As soon as I entered the building, I felt an overwhelming sense of pressure change. I immediately felt anxious and strange. A staff member was setting up, so I asked them if the place was haunted. They looked at me in amazement, but that only added to my unease.
After the gig, I chatted with Alexander Tucker, aka Microcorps, about ghost stories. It was completely random, but it made me realize that all of these feelings and thoughts were leading me towards creating something with ghosts in my next album.
I began researching ghost hunting technology and discovered many connections between the development of audio technology and the spiritualist movement. This led me down a path of discovering other musicians who had also explored supernatural themes in their work, such as Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram and the Radiophonic Workshop. I was also fascinated by how early spiritualism influenced women’s rights because it gave women a platform and power that they didn’t have before.
In the end, what came out on Black Dog was an emotional response to all of these experiences. It was an excavation of my own fears and mental state. However, making an initial connection between technology, women’s rights and ghosts was something that blew me away – it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for my music.