Glasgow-based alternative indie-pop artist Zoe Graham today announces the release of her debut album TENT, out on 21 March.
Several years in the making, her ambitious debut record is the sound of Zoe writing out of the rut. It has all the intimacy and vulnerability of the therapist’s chaise longue, but with the door flung wide open for others to listen in. Guitars curdle with loungy synths and tautly machined drums.
The title, TENT, is part open and perpetually-shifting acronym (The Eternal Navigation of Truth, or TEN songs about Therapy) and part metaphor for the mixture of exposure and safety from the outside world that sleeping under canvas provides. “That’s kind of what this journey has felt like,” Zoe says.
The announcement comes alongside new single ‘Good Girl’, an introspective track about being denied the affection of another woman, and traded in for a man. The song lilts on the clockwork of a Leslie Wizard Organ drum machine accompanied by a dog-like vocal hook and bow brushed guitars. The setting is minimal, and understated before opening up into an ethereal Kate Bush-esque wilderness.
“We all on some level have a need to feel loved. But sometimes in the heat of a moment our actions can lead us to be undesirable.” says Zoe. “This song is about wanting to be vulnerable with someone while being endlessly worried about what they really think of you. It’s easy to become hyper self aware, constantly checking yourself, worried if you said or did the wrong thing, or if you look the wrong way. Sometimes for queer people, like me, this can also inflame a feeling of internalised homophobia. It can be weird and heartbreaking to navigate a connection with someone who fundamentally just doesn’t bat for the same team as you. Somehow you can lose sense of who you thought you were, any shred of confidence can disappear. Slowly all you start to think about is how cool or appealing you are. Then you realise you’re neither of those things because you think about them too much.”
The single is accompanied by a video which sees Zoe deal with her past feelings of inadequacy as a gay woman by dressing up in full male drag and going for a spectacular night out in Glasgow’s city centre. “I wanted to live one spectacular night on the town as a straight man.” says Zoe. I entrusted my friends Kieran Howe (film maker) and Eilidh Bryant (make-up artist and great pal), to transform me into your classic Glaswegian bearded musician. I swaggered from pub to newsagents to pub again man spreading as I went. It felt freeing and to be honest, totally exhausting.”
TENT:
- Push and Pull
- Happen
- Evilin
- Even Though I’m Scared
- Shift This Feeling
- Good Girl
- I Only Ever Loved Yous
- Stranger Care
- When Living Came Easy
- Divine Feminine Energy
