FEATURE: Spotlight: Imogen and the Knife

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Ruby Pluhar

Imogen and the Knife

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THE amazing E.P…

Some Kind of Love came out on 19th July. From Imogen and the Knife, it is one that I would recommend everyone check out. Before getting to some other interviews, I want to bring in, in its entirety, an interview from DORK. They spoke to Imogen and the Knife about her anticipated and phenomenal debut E.P. Giving us an insight into the five tracks:

“Rising talent Imogen and the Knife has unveiled her eagerly anticipated debut EP ‘Some Kind of Love’, a poignant exploration of love’s multifaceted nature. Hailing from Newcastle but now based in South-East London, Imogen crafts a unique world that draws inspiration from iconic artists like Kate Bush and Nick Cave while carving out her own distinctive voice.

The five-track EP weaves together deeply personal narratives, from recurring dreams to formative sisterly bonds, all united by their examination of love in its various forms. Imogen’s commitment to her craft shines through in lyrics that cut straight to the heart, living up to the surgical precision implied by her moniker.

Here, Imogen takes us on an intimate journey through ‘Some Kind of Love’, track by track, for our latest Artist’s Guide.

MOTHER OF GOD

Mother of God is a play-by-play of a recurring dream I had during a pretty turbulent and transitional time in my life. The images were already there: the boat-shaped house, the knife with my initials on it, the mosaic of faces.

“Mother of God! This can’t be the only one” is a waking realisation that, unless addressed, the dream and the pain won’t leave. Which is apt because after it was written, the recurring dream, at least, did.

IF IT WON’T TALK OF RAIN

This is essentially a musing on my upbringing as a fiercely proud northerner and musician, what this meant as a young woman choosing to leave home, how I continue to navigate a torn identity, the men in my life and how they’ve shaped me, how I love them, how it’s complicated. Northerners are rooted in a culture of song and place, and there’s a defiant and bleak romanticism ingrained in us. It commanded my outlook on life, and this track is an exploration of the spectrum of love, joy, pain and torment that comes with it. Ultimately, what use is my voice, as a Northerner and as a woman, if I’m not exploring all shades of what makes that?

RED (IS MY COLOUR)

This is one of those songs that fell out fully formed, which usually happens when I’m searching for something. I guess it’s a broad question of legacy, womanhood and our learned behaviour that shapes the continued degradation of women. It asks what it would truly mean to start again without any influence of heritage or structures; what parts of us are unknowingly intrinsic to the cycle of hurt. The song addresses you, myself, anybody. It’s less of a call to arms and more of an invitation to look inward.

PARIS NIGHT

This one is for my younger sister. I somehow managed to whisk her away to Paris at the last minute on a particularly bleak weekend (Boris had just won the election), and it was a really formative time in our relationship.

I didn’t really know what was going on with my life, and she was just about to leave school. It was a strange, quiet, apprehensive bubble of time. I remember looking at her and thinking, “I’m not sure what we’re going back to; I’d rather just stay here”.

My nearest know I’m not quiet about her being the most precious thing on the planet to me. It’s not the first or the last song about her, but it’s maybe the best.

SOME KIND OF LOVE

The EP opens and closes with a dream.

I was very close with someone when I was a kid, I don’t really know them much anymore, but they found their way into a dream I had, and we had a really moving conversation. Of course, it was my brain that made up what they were saying and how we interacted – the layers of that are really interesting to me. I figured it’s some kind of love that keeps them floating about my subconscious.

I titled the EP after this song because each track explores love of some kind in its own way. Love shapes my experience of this world. It’s beauty and it’s pain. I hold a lot of it. Sometimes, I’m not sure where to put it, and then, sometimes, a collection of songs appears”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Aaron Wyld

The moniker of Imogen Williams, this London-via-Newcastle talent is someone being tipped for great things. Getting under the radar of some big websites and magazines. NME were among those to chat with Imogen and the Knife about Some Kind of Love. Intrigued by a game-changing E.P., it is interesting discovering what the E.P. means to her. Some of the artists that have influenced her:

“That sense of freedom imbues her new EP ‘Some Kind Of Love’, which arrives this Friday (July 19). You only need to hear the breadth of its first few singles to know how adventurous this new direction is. ‘Mother Of God’ is a choppy, sultry bop drawing from the brooding grittiness of her icon PJ Harvey, while the tender piano-led ‘If It Won’t Talk Of Rain’ is an intimate, lovelorn ballad where Williams ponders: “If he takes me for dinner / can he wave my fee / I guess music is love and my loving is free.”

Such candid themes haven’t come for Williams totally out of the blue. Having originally established herself as a solo artist back in 2018, releasing piano-driven pop under her first name, she sees the era of ‘The Knife’ as more of a subtle reinvention. “It’s more of a continuation and a growth. I’ve always been writing like this, it’s just developed and taken on new forms.”

NME: So how did the concept of ‘The Knife’ come about and why change it up now?

“I’ve been playing my own music from the age of 15 so there’s definitely been lots of reinventions as I’ve gone through life. Everyone changes as they get older and it’s felt apt to do that with my music. After my brief break, I started putting on live nights back in 2022. I did a series called ‘Imogen And Friends’ in London and Newcastle which restored my faith in the fact that music is never going to leave me. At the same time I had all of these songs lying about, so it really spurred me on to set about making the record of my dreams.”

Your music has always been deeply personal. What does ‘The Knife’ itself mean?

“‘The Knife’ is about reclaiming. I was born with hip dysplasia which meant that I had loads of corrective surgeries from a young age. That’s definitely one of the reasons why I make music and have always found solace in it. I’ve been living with chronic pain my whole life and being under the knife was a huge part of growing up. So it’s the reclaiming of that surgical knife, but I also wanted to allude to the fact that I have a band and it takes a village: it’s my producer, it’s the piano, it’s so much more than me.”

You’re massively proud of your Newcastle roots as an artist as well. How does that come through in the new direction?

“That part of me gets stronger the more I’m away from the north and Newcastle, but I feel really lucky to have that connection. Much like the Irish and Welsh, so many northerners are born into a culture of song. I think that’s so beautiful and it’s really important to me and it’s underpinned all of my writing. I understand that I’m a storyteller and that’s been passed down through my family. For me, it comes back to this culture of song and of community and of love, really. That’s the main thing for me and maybe that isn’t talked about enough. I spend so much of my time being so nurtured by my community up there.”

Love is of course a massive overarching theme of the EP. Did that present itself quite early on in this period of self-discovery?

“I refer to the EP as a patchwork of songs because they’re from quite a few different times in my life. I just cherry-picked the tracks that I love from across the last couple of years. When I put them together I found that they’re all exploring love in some way or another. It explores what love can be in all different capacities and I think that was a nice way to tie them all together. All of my songs are fuelled by love in some capacity. Love infiltrates absolutely everything I do.”

You’ve cited everyone from PJ Harvey to CMAT to Lana Del Rey as inspirations. I guess the common thread is these powerful women who have always done it on their own terms?

“They’re all massively important to me. PJ Harvey has been a huge one, I channel her musically but more importantly the way she navigates her art and life. She managed to remain artful and mysterious and elusive while being really cool and brash. I love CMAT, her performance at the Big Weekend actually reduced me to tears. it made me realise I’d been so devoid of women just going for it. She sounded so beautiful while screaming like a siren and talking about the most devastating stuff ever through a lens of drag and comedy. It was the perfect show”.

I am going to finish with an interview from The Line of Best Fit. More about her background and path to where she is now. Formerly trading under the name IMOGEN, the new name and sound came after a period of rest. She is now creating her truest and most memorable music. It all bodes well for an artist we will be hearing from years down the line:

“She moved to London to take the infamous popular music course at Goldsmiths, a degree that launched many artists before her. “Newcastle to New Cross,” she jokes. “That really challenged what I thought I was doing. It wasn't necessarily a songwriting course, it wasn't really a music course, it was more of a philosophical, existential, constantly asking the question, ‘What are you bringing to the world as a musician and why is it important that your voice is heard?’ It was so important and it was such an incredible education to have.”

Having made music under her full name while playing in Newcastle, after graduating from Goldsmiths she dropped the Williams and continued to gig and record her brooding and capacious, emotionally-driven pop balladry. But after a few years and the stop-start of the pandemic, she found herself questioning everything. “I think what I've really struggled with, and still do to an extent, is the idea of shoehorning this inherently anti-capitalist, anti-structural thing - which is music making and wanting to connect with other humans through the art of songwriting and performing - into this insanely capitalist structure,” she says. “I just didn’t know if that's what I wanted to do.”

After a few weeks of soul-searching she stripped everything back to its beginnings. She began to put on her Imogen and Friends live nights around London and in Newcastle, she began working on new material with writer/producer Alex Parish, and she added a new suffix to her artist persona, Imogen and the Knife.

During the pandemic, Williams had applied for a role with the Ivors Academy, the body for UK songwriters and composers. She found herself accepted onto their board of directors. “It gave me a sense of belonging but also extreme validation, which I didn’t have before,” she smiles.

Armed with a new sense of identity and confidence, she applied for PRS’ Momentum Fund, landing the funding to bring her new project into fruition. Working alongside Parish, the pair put everything into the creation of an EP. “Obviously we went to RAK Studios. I was like, well, if I’ve got the money!” she laughs. “I got all my friends to play on it and I got to pay them, just people I knew and loved. It just felt so wonderful and I really feel like you can hear that it was made in that room. I like to think it’s money well spent.”

Released next month, Some Kind of Love is an expansive and elegantly orchestrated collection of dark, progressive, and sonically captivating pop echoes. From the grinding bass pulse of first single “Mother of God,” masterful in its dynamics, to the stark confessional of follow-up “If It Won’t Talk of Rain,” the EP showcases Williams’ direct narratives and joyfully unreserved compositions.

New single, “Red (is My Colour)”, out today, is an elegant cut of classic songwriting with dark undertones, its delivery soft but its lyrics sharp. “It’s a constant question of what are we doing? Why does this perpetual cycle of violence towards women and non-men keep happening?” she explains. “I’m not really accusing anybody, it’s more like, everybody, nobody and me. It’s just posing a lot of questions, because I have them all the time.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Ruby Pluhar

Having secured new management off the back of the recordings, Williams decided to keep everything close to home and release through the company’s own imprint, Vertex Music. “It felt so natural to go in a homely direction in a way that just felt right. It felt like a well-oiled machine. It felt like everyone’s vision aligned and it just kept it in the family. It’s made the whole process a lot easier and less daunting,” she says.

As Imogen and the Knife, Williams has created a world within which she can step back and let her music take on its own life, from the most devastating riffs to the lightest sentiment, her songs are free from her own boundaries and realities. “Some of them are rageful, some are desperately sad, some are joyful,” she says. “It’s just ruminating on different kinds of love and how the lens through which I see everything is just this lens of love. I think it’s the thing that really just propels me through life”.

Some Kind of Love is among the best and original E.P.s of the year. I am excited to see where Imogen and the Knife heads next. Having discovered her relatively recently, I am curious to see what happens next. A wonderful artist with a singular talent, her captivating music…