Life Is Not Always Linear, With Sun
More than two years ago, a man emailed to tell me about an artist he’d been working with. He was a member of her band and really believed in the music she was writing. In his email he included a sample of the music she’d been recording in the past year - he didn’t want me to do anything other than listen. I kept up with that artist, called With Sun. That music has since come to fruition and was released as a three-track EP called ‘Sometimes we go Backwards’.
With Sun is the artistic moniker for singer/songwriter Alice Hale. Under her own name, Alice released her album ‘In The Real World’ in 2010. Her songs are poetic and acoustic in nature, as demonstrated by With Sun’s single ‘Solitaire’, released in 2014, and her EP ‘Aeroplane’ released the following year. Also in 2015, With Sun collaborated with Martin Wagdin for the synth-based tracks ‘Coming Home’ and the Toyah cover ‘It’s A Mystery’. The latter was reinterpreted again by With Sun with fellow singer/songwriter Sephine Llo to celebrate the song’s 40th anniversary in 2021.
After releasing her EP ‘Chaos and Mortality’ in 2019, With Sun put out several singles during the pandemic. These include a song inspired by that time called ‘Night and Day’ and the Samaritans-supporting track ‘The Waiting Room’.
In the summer of 2022, Alice wrote and released a song based on an experience that’s often left unwritten in songwriting - the subject of her own miscarriage. ‘Thirteen Weeks’ received airplay on BBC Introducing in Kent, with Tom Robinson also spinning the track on BBC Radio 6 Music, calling it ‘Beautiful, brave and heart-wrenching.’
In November, With Sun released her next EP, titled ‘Sometimes we go Backwards’. The three-track release is a different direction stylistically for Hale, evident immediately in its opening track ‘Before You Go’.
‘Late last night I didn’t say goodbye, I did not know it would be the last time to see you Before You Go.’
That stylistic change is rooted in With Sun’s decision to write these songs on piano, giving ‘Before You Go’ a smooth jazz edge that wouldn’t have been achieved with acoustic guitar. With Sun is sparing with her chords, while her vocal delivery rides the tempo of her words, letting the volume of their impact decide on their emphasis. The first lines tumble out in desperation, while With Sun’s inner questioning is exhaled in frustration, ‘Why is this so hard? Why does it hurt so bad?’
Opening these songs out is producer and mix engineer Philip Michael Jack, carefully adding drums, building up to an ascending guitar line to your left while more guitar wails to your right. Most importantly, With Sun’s vocal harmonies are central, every part working together to create the dramatic opening for an EP that holds the sonic majesty of a full-length album. The closing lines of this piece read like a third movement, With Sun harmonising airily over delicate piano:
‘Joy comes in the morning, darkness will not last, daylight brings the dawning, let the shadows pass.’
Where ‘Before You Go’ took a purer approach, the middle frequencies of ‘Safe and Sound’ crackle out of the speakers with a programmed beat. This gives way to the full body of With Sun’s voice; ‘London town went underground, I took a tunnel back in time to all the souls I left behind…’
This song is pacier than the EP’s opening track, with more lean on rhythm, bass accompanying the drums and even the guitar breaks maintaining the stride. The clean guitar is combined beautifully with Alice’s soft voice, who adds to the vocal arrangement with bursts of, ‘Miss having you, miss having you…’ the tone of With Sun blending well with the voice of Philip Michael Jack.
The core message of the lyric in ‘Safe and Sound’ is inspired by the pandemic, of reaching out to people, ‘I miss having you around, I hope you’re Safe and Sound.’ This track was first released back in December 2020, the music video featuring a cast of friends and fans recorded during lockdown. When viewed through a lens of more than two years later, it’s truly a testament to how well we kept our spirits up during that time.
Closing the EP is ‘If Her Gardens Burn’, an atmospheric opening bringing in an assertive beat. The floating voice of With Sun on paper may well be the opposite to this arrangement, but the two work together perfectly, amid distorted bass and the early established textures.
‘Hide from the sun, but we can’t hide what we’ve become…’
Philip Michael Jack lends his voice to With Sun’s for the next verse, adding comfort to lines like, ‘It’s my divine right to judge what’s wrong and right, I’m sorry that I caused your pain, it’s too late to start again.’
Though the beat sat with the track well before, it’s the arrival of With Sun’s rap verse that drives her point home, ‘Someone came and bought the sky and divided it up like a slice of pie, but some were bigger than the rest…’ With this final verse, With Sun may well be telling the story of forces like The British Empire, how their actions in the past have shaped the world, ‘the beauty you made, the culture you grew, that’s now all ours, there’s nothing you can do.’ In spite of all the turmoil, With Sun ultimately concludes her striking lyric with a plea for peace:
‘Together, we can make peaceful change, inspire, let go of hate, but the sun will go out If Her Gardens Burn, you won’t have lived, and I won’t have learned.’
This is all prefaced by With Sun’s statement accompanying the EP, that life and learning is not always linear. We do sometimes make the same mistakes, affirming that we’re only human and that ‘Sometimes we go Backwards’:
‘We're not always right,
We’re not better people now than who we were,
And the past is both our present and future.’
Continue reading for our Q&A with Alice Hale. We ask about the writing and recording of this EP, the response to ‘Thirteen Weeks’ and With Sun’s recent writing trip leading to the possibility of new material.
1. You began recording your new EP 'Sometimes we go Backwards' in 2020, and we got to hear it at last more than two years later. What's the journey been like with these songs? Do you feel the same about them as when you wrote them?
Journey is the right word! All of the songs started as just voice and piano, but I knew I wanted to experiment with production and arrangement - there were obvious sections that needed other instruments to help progress the song and tell the story. They were all written during the pandemic when there was a lot of tension around certain subjects, fortunately I had the time to really delve into that tension. When I listen to them now they sound intense, but it was an intense time.
2. Stylistically this EP has a different sound than what your fans have come to expect from you, what prompted that experiment?
Time and opportunity. It’s so rare as an independent artist that you have the time to devote solely to your art. I need to work to fund my projects so often work always gets in the way or ends up being the priority. I was fortunate to be put on furlough so I decided to use that time to write and develop ideas. I’d always spoken to Phil Jack (the producer) about working with him on a project at some point. He was also available during that time so we were able to make that happen with these songs. Because the songs were piano driven (I usually write on guitar) I was curious to see how different they could sound and very open to Phil’s ideas.
3. Is it possible you'll continue making music in this style? Are there other musical avenues you'd like to explore?
I really enjoyed the creative freedom. I don’t think my next project will sound exactly like this but I’ll definitely take some elements from it. I’d like to explore a sound that’s somewhere in the middle, capturing the space and simplicity of my more acoustic sound but with more varied instrumentation like this project.
4. 'Before You Go' really sets the tone of this EP, how did that song begin life?
Before You Go was written right at the beginning of the pandemic. It was a scary time, this virus had appeared, lots of people all over the world were dying and there were no vaccines. My dad caught it (or at least what we thought was it as there were no tests yet). He sounded very sick and I was so worried because he has a heart condition that makes him more vulnerable. I remember speaking to him and then trying to call later that night and not getting any answer. Of course your brain goes to the worse case scenario. It was a long night, I didn’t get any sleep as I was so anxious. When I heard from him in the morning it was a huge relief.
5. 'Safe and Sound' is very visual, is this song about a real person?
Safe and Sound is about lots of people! I was reflecting on all the people from my past. Mainly those relationships that were close and significant and wondering how those people are and what they’re doing now. When faced with crisis it makes you realise that any tension or issues in the past are futile and actually all that matters is that people are safe and well. For all the negative things the pandemic brought us, the positive was that it made us reach out, check in and reconnect with some people that we’d lost touch with.
6. I love the spoken word section of 'If Her Gardens Burn', was there a particular event that inspired that? Was it a stream-of-consciousness writing affair or did you refine it over time?
If Her Gardens Burn was inspired by the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. There was a lot of pressure for white people to act and I was struggling to find a way to do that in an authentic and sustainable way. Because of my work I’ve always been quite conscious of racism so I felt like I had a lot of conversations and experiences to draw on when writing the song. It was important to me to try and capture all the different voices from those conversations so it wasn’t just me expressing my opinion on something that doesn’t directly affect me.
7. The artwork for this EP definitely draws you in, who created that?
That was created by my friend Keith Sykes. He’s a very talented photographer but doesn’t promote his work so I’m glad that I’ve been able to do that.
8. Earlier in 2022, you also released your single 'Thirteen Weeks', which is often a story untold through music. What was the response like when people heard that song?
Thirteen Weeks had an amazing response. There was a lot of support from the musical community but also from people who had experienced miscarriage and pregnancy loss (which is a lot)! It was a challenge for me to capture something so painful in an artistic way that was personal but also universal. I had a lot of people tell me how much it had resonated with them and allowed them to share their story. That’s the most you can ever hope for. For me, it’s not about streaming numbers or followers. If the song can move people enough for them to speak out, or provide some kind of healing - that’s real success.
9. Outside of your music, some of your poems have been published on the internet. Would you share with us the most recent poem you've written?
I haven’t written any poems in a while, but now that you’ve mentioned it I will. I went through a stage not so long ago of writing haikus and short poems, so here is one of those.
Salmon streaks tear across the skyline like violent scars
Treetops Evergreen or wintering - uneven like people
Street lamps peppered on the hill wrap themselves around sooty bends: a fallen constellation
Striking and bigger than ourselves
Sit in the constancy of evening
knowing the promise of dawn
10. I saw you recently escaped to the country to do some writing, how did that go? Are there any songs you'll be taking forward from there?
It was very successful. Again to devote that time to writing is so rare. But also I can’t recommend enough taking yourself out of the humdrum of life and into an inspiring space! There are a few ideas that came out of that weekend. I just have to decide which one is the next project. I’d love to do them all but I have a newborn baby so I have to be realistic about time!
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Download and stream With Sun’s EP ‘Sometimes we go Backwards’ on her Bandcamp page, along with a selection of previous singles.
Find out more about With Sun on her official website.
Follow With Sun on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @withsunmusic.
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