This segment features artists who have submitted their tracks/videos to She Makes Music. If you would like to be featured here then please send an e-mail to helen@shemakesmusic.co.uk. We look forward to hearing from you!

Catherine McQuade
Catherine’s work as a solo artist creates an evocative world which explores 60’s film scores, jazz, classical, Latin and electronica. She creates a unique hybrid of uplifting melancholy and cool martini sipping textures. Most commonly described as the next potential Bond theme, Catherine’s music is spacious, luminous and darkly intimate. Her song ‘Snow’ is about her first time skiing in stunning Queenstown, New Zealand. “I was mesmerised by the Snow and the feeling of gliding across it in almost perfect silence; it felt transcendant. At the same time I was being frozen out by my partner, who refused to speak to me for the entire trip. These two sensations, so polarised, merged to form a unique hybrid of beauty and pain. This is what I have tried to capture in the song ‘Snow’,” she explains. Listen below. 

Rosanne Baker Thornley
‘Sorry I’m Late’ is the fourth and most recent single from singer-songwriter, Rosanne Baker Thornley’s (RBT) newly released album of the same name.“We’re all busy with lives that pull us in many directions, and often times getting to our own wants isn’t the first priority,” she says. “That’s just the reality of day-to-day life responsibilities and a clock that has less minutes than there are things to do. And while we eagerly plan for the future, life is in the moment-to-moment, the day-to-day unfolding in the here and now. Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans”. Based in Toronto, Canada, Thornley has been evolving and expanding her relationship with music, and writing for quite some time. And she is no stranger to the art. She is well-established as a successful songwriter, who is sought after as a writer/co-writer and producer by many other artists – new and established. Thornley’s debut album, ‘Courage’ released in 1994- was well-received, but life interrupted that early success, and now all these years later she has returned to her solo career. “Sorry I’m Late was inspired in a moment when a friend was going to make us late for a meeting,” explains Roseanne. “I joked that given my record for arriving late that I might as well just add a ‘sorry I’m late’ disclaimer to my email signature. That was the aha moment of finding the name for my album. A title that perfectly summed up the experience of the album and also inspired a perfect gateway to writing a song about why I had waited so long between my first album and this new one.” Listen below.

Majorelle Blue
Majorelle Blue has been described as “too rock to be pop, but also too pop to be rock”. But instead of fitting in, they have created their own little blue box in the Swedish music scene, at least according to Martin Wilson from the Swedish music blog Drefvet. Their new EP Waterproof Mascara flirts with retro pop and lo-fi, and is as usual filled with sticky melodies. Smart quirky lyrics are combined with difficult themes like hypocrisy and superficiality, inadequate systems and unfulfilled dreams. Their sound is tougher than Alvvays, but a bit more wussy than Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in other words, an indie dream for the ambivalent. One day, band members Kotte and Nellie sat in Kotte’s courtyard and discussed anything and everything that’s wrong with the world. It turned into ‘Inheritance’, a song that much like an emotional bomb explodes in the end. If you like Gothenburgian indie, dream pop and anxiety – then you’ll probably like this too. It’s the last release from their Waterproof Mascara EP. Listen below.

Marthe Halvorsen
Marthe Halvorsen is a Montreal-based Norwegian artist, songwriter and producer who weaves together dreamy evocative Indie Folk Music. With a unique sincerity in her voice Marthe Halvorsen has a special ability to touch something deep inside the listener. Having grown up in Arctic Norway, nature has always been an important source of inspiration in her music. The spaciousness and the raw unpolished landscapes of the north can be traced in her sense of songwriting and taste in music production. With a love for a minimalistic and an unpolished sound, Marthe seeks to write songs that carry an intention and that comes from an authentic place within herself. Serving as a tool for reflection and connection. Marthe Halvorsen is currently in the process of finishing her second full length album, and the first single ‘For the Dreamers & the Bold’ is out now. The song gives us a taste of her upcoming album where the Norwegian artist has been diving deeper into the producer role, crafting and perfecting her very own characteristic sound.  She says, “This song came to me at a time when I was feeling a bit frustrated with humanity and the society that I was living in. I felt that the social political climate was getting more and more harsh, and more and more polarized, creating distance between people. I was longing for another reality with more nuances. I wanted this song to feel like a warm blanket of hope in what sometimes feels like a crazy world. Sonically I wanted the music to reflect upon the lyrics of the song, representing both the dreamy and the bold at the same time. I wanted it to feel like a counterpoint to a world that is running very fast and to give space for contemplation. There is a certain innocence to the song, while at the same time it is reflecting upon some very serious matters. I really like  how the double bass and the drums give that grounding feeling to the song, while the more dreamy aspect of the electric guitars lies floating on the top of that. Sort of like the idea that any thought or intention also needs substance and action to actually make something happen and mean something in the real world.” Listen below.

Check out more of our recent submissions on the playlist below!