8/10• Way Back When
• Jersey City
• American Rail
• Amnesia
• Double Dutch
• Animal
• Louisville
• January
• Almanac
• Jacob’s Ladder In addition to her various musical projects (including a stint as lead guitarist for Titus Andronicus, for which she is probably best known), Hilly Eye’s Amy Klein is an accomplished writer with a knack for engaging reflections not only on representations of the female in art, but also the collective consciousness of what is expected from so-called alternative music and the role it plays in the pursuit of maturity. In collaboration with her long-time friend Catherine Tung, Hilly Eye can be seen as Klein’s attempt to explore these issues further, to examine the collective consciousness of music that implicates the political as well as personal resistance and transcendence. ”Are we going to open our culture up to challenge oppressive systems of race and class, and privilege, and gender, and sexual orientation?” she asked in a particularly incisive piece for Flavorwire. “This is what rock and roll was meant for, and what the spirit that captures the collective imagination of youth can accomplish.”

Klein and Tung first met through their involvement in college radio at Harvard, reconnecting four years ago after bumping into each other at a Lightning Bolt concert. At the time, both were writers stepping away from the conventionalities of their experiences as musicians – Tung leaving her classical violin background to play drums, and Klein eventually departing from Titus Andronicus to realise her own creative vision – and this shared experience feeds into the duo’s full-length debut, Reasons To Live, an album aggressively mindful of the imperfections and affirmations of expanding one’s worldview, tied together by a mutual, organic, almost physical audacity.

Much of the record builds and breaks in a loop-textured wilderness, oscillating between vulnerability and empowerment. ‘Almanac’, for example, opens with a solid, heavy snare beat pulsing over a repeated guitar melody, but mid-song the rhythm shifts, invoking the mood and intimacy of ‘90s alternative rock as the atmosphere balloons into something bigger, blurring its way into darkness and violent mystery reminiscent of Sonic Youth’s EVOL. Elsewhere, the vocals and brash drumming of ‘Animal’ echo the last verse of Bikini Kill’s ‘Star Bellied Boy’ (a destructive anthem of victimisation by a dubious male feminist), while its rendition of violence and inner conflict focus on the same questions of gender and notions of expectation that Kathleen Hanna so consummately raged against.

Hilly Eye experiment with different sounds throughout. Second track ‘Jersey City’ is playful and abounds with psych-heavy guitar licks, while towards the rear of the record ‘Louisville’ embraces the bluesy sounds of its Kentucky homeland. The journey between these two cities is a contemporary, contemplative take on populist mid-‘70s Americana and hard rock. Such associations are easy to pick up in ‘Amnesia’, a graceful embrace of identity through declarative one-liners, in which Tung traces Klein’s unrestrained phonation with an overbearing deep, sludgy dropkick. The road isn’t always so clear, however. Roughly forty seconds in, ‘Double Dutch’ begins to convulse into hypnotic, finger-tapping pop-metal, travelling via Swans and Marnie Stern before ending in a stream of shimmery feedback.

The myriad of styles never sounds unfocused but is at times a little busy. Klein’s voice is occasionally lost under the loops and the reverb, particularly in ‘January’, on which it is submerged amid the blurred edges of psychedelia and pop rhythms. And, although no one could accuse Hilly Eye of lacking ideas, in view of their classically trained, multi-instrumental background, the guitar- and drums-heavy approach does raise some questions about unrealised potential. Despite these drawbacks, Reasons To Live is an invigorating and extremely capable debut, marking out Klein and Tung as a vernal pair bristling with talent, ideas and the nerves to go with them.

8/10• Go Ahead
• Pink Ruff
• You’re Not Alone
• Drift Away
• Shades Of Eternal Night
• Fall Into Your Eyes
• Inside My Head
• Waking Dream
• Losing Touch
• Cover The Sky
• Get Lost With a Carrie Brownstein-approved name change (from the less forceful Reading Rainbow) and the doubling of the lineup from the original core duo of Sarah Everton and Rob Garcia to include Al Creedon (lead guitar) and Greg Frantz (who takes Everton’s place on drums, as she moves to bass), album number three from Bleeding Rainbow might be expected to bear the hallmarks of a band in transition. Having focused on their love of guitar noise on their self-released debut, 2009′s Mystical Participation, and channelled a poppier sound on the following year’s well-received Prism Eyes, this time around a combination of both approaches seems to be in play.

Yeah Right is an album that is characterised by its contrasts, perhaps already signposted by the band’s new name – a harsh image juxtaposed with a softer one. Tracks like opener ‘Go Ahead’ feature both gentle, restrained harmonies and then, sometimes all of a sudden, unleash cavalcades of guitar noise, fuzzy, blurred and occasionally positively wailing, and on ‘Pink Ruff’ the heavily MBV-indebted intro notably changes step to a purer, clearer sound once Everton’s vocals arrive in the mix. Images of darkness and uncertainty are summoned again and again, whether by a “dream that won’t go away” in ‘Go Ahead’ or a “darkness [that] overwhelms you” in ‘Pink Ruff’, playing with feelings of obscurity and shifting perceptions of reality.

The music frequently shifts, too, cutting between the decades such that nods to the Bohemian ‘60s bump up against the slick sounds of the ‘80s and, more frequently, the scuzzy ‘90s. The buzzing guitar lines of ‘You’re Not Alone’ are offset by markedly freewheelin’ vocal harmonies (think The Mamas & The Papas), which show up a few times throughout the record – although ‘Get Lost’ and ‘Drift Away’ have distinct shades of The B-52s. Shoegaze is an obvious touchstone, particularly in the album’s first half, but the propulsive animation, crisp vocals and clarity of production of later tracks, such as ‘Inside My Head’, are entirely free of the (glorious) fug of noise.

Yeah Right, then, is less a band-in-transition album and more a snapshot of a band finding an innovative means of expressing their duality, which is precisely why it works so well. In acknowledging life’s – and their own – uncertainties, Bleeding Rainbow present the contrasting aspects of their sound as they are, rather than attempting to blend or merge them, and deftly avoid diluting their vision.

8/10• Broken English
• Witches’ Song
• Brain Drain
• Guilt
• The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
• What’s The Hurry?
• Working Class Hero
• Why D’ya Do It?
• Broken English (orig.)
• Witches’ Song (orig.)
• Brain Drain (orig.)
• Guilt (orig.)
• The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan (orig.)
• What’s The Hurry? (orig.)
• Working Class Hero (orig.
• Why D’ya Do it? (orig.)
• Sister Morphine
• Broken English (7″ version)
• Broken English (7″ remix)
• Broken English (12″ remix)
• Why D’ya Do It? (12″ remix) Back in 1978 if you’d predicted that Marianne Faithfull was about to reinvent herself as the elder stateswoman of the punk movement, people would most likely have assumed that you were on as many drugs as the singer herself. The ’70s had not been a kind decade to Faithfull, who had swapped a twisted kind of domesticity as a Rolling Stone girlfriend for a heroin habit and spells of sleeping on the streets. Ever a diffident kind of popstar, even at the height of her first brush with fame in the early ’60s, she had become less an artist than a cautionary tale of what too much fun and indulgence can do to a girl. That all changed with the release of Broken English in ’79. Not only did Faithfull spit a generation’s worth of received notions about what female artists can and should do right into the faces of her doubters, better still she achieved it in two remarkable ways: first with shock tactics, and second by making an album that – appropriately enough for someone who saw peace and love die, live and in full colour – perfectly captured what it feels like for your dreams to wither.

The initial shock lay in that voice. Faithfull may now be a byword for a gritty, lived-in style of singing, but hearing the change in her voice for the first time with Broken English must have been a palpable shock. Drugs, heavy smoking and hard living had filed the pleasant, if bland, voice that had graced her first records right down to its stumps. Only the hauteur that had originally marked Faithfull out as an aristocrat among pop musicians (itself a myth given that Faithfull was brought up in genteel poverty by a single mother) remained, casting an air of ironic detachment over the album’s second shock: its determination to stare into the abyss. Broken English is a bleak record. Its songs deal in despair, whether exploring the baffling nihilism of the Baader Meinhof gang (‘Broken English’), the impossibility of goodness (‘Guilt’) or savage sexual jealousy (‘Why D’Ya Do It’). Even its few bright spots, such as the Wiccan baccante described in the beautiful ‘Witches’ Song’ are overshadowed by a knowledge that any kind of joy must be paid for in despair. And perhaps most poignantly of all in ‘The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan’, a song about madness in suburban America that reminds us that, while the wages of sin are death, the path of cosy domesticity is still a means to the same end.

Listening to the record long after the voice, the uncomfortable subject matter and the shock of a woman unashamedly shrieking ‘cunt’ have faded, what comes through clearly is how gorgeous Broken English still sounds. The punk aesthetic that had ruled the second half of the decade is nowhere to be heard as Mark Miller Mundy’s glossy production acts to counterpoint the rawness of Faithfull’s vocals. Stevie Winwood’s keyboards shimmer right through the album, from the ‘Blade Runner’-esque trill that opens the title track to the chilly synths that somehow fooled listeners into mistaking ‘The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan’ for a pop track and giving Faithfull a rare opportunity to appear on ‘Top Of The Pops’. Elsewhere, the arrangements veer dangerously towards adult-oriented rock. The airy darkness and perfectly judged saxophone solo of ‘Guilt’, for example, feels almost like a companion piece to that antithesis of all things punk, Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’.

Broken English, while always fascinating, is not a perfect album. ‘Brain Drain’ drags and a cover of John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’ rings hollow when Faithfull gives it the same detached treatment that in subsequent years would make her one of the world’s mot impressive interpreters of Brecht and Weill. Nor has the album’s most controversial song, ‘Why D’Ya Do It’ aged well, its frank sexual language and cod reggae backing making it more comedic than effective. Where the album does still hit its target, however – in the title track, ‘Witches Song’, the propulsive ‘What’s The Hurry’, and most of all in ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ – Broken English is a record out of time, looking forward to when Peter, Paul & Mary are displaced by PJ Harvey. Desolation has rarely sounded as sleek.

In the ’60s, Marianne Faithfull was at best a footnote. In 1979 she became an artist, and Broken English is her flawed but thrilling magnum opus. Don’t buy this record for the extras, which are mostly incidental mixes. Buy it for itself; it’s worth it.

8/10• Mother Earth, Father God
• Honey
• Jealousy & I
• November Baby
• When Winter’s Over
• Chains
• Moon & Back
• Don’t Run Away, Emilie
• Come To Terms
• Waterfall There’s a remarkable confidence to 22-year-old Mackenzie Scott’s debut album. She’s arrived, seemingly out of nowhere, a wise and sophisticated songwriter and performer, recognising the slow-burning impact of nuance, patience and suspense. Her intimate guitar fingerpicking and close-mic’d delivery is the sort of music that demands your full attention, and she doesn’t disappoint.

Torres is a record about restraint, both musically and lyrically. Scott’s instrumentation is often uncomfortably pared down, a minimalism that never cushions the angst of her vocals. When the songs do call for something lush, her string arrangements are sweet but never cloying, deployed to great effect on ‘Moon & Back’ and ‘Don’t Run Away, Emilie’ – two of the more sentimental tracks, but still tinged with melancholy. More often than not, though, the songs have no adornment beyond the odd subtle bass hit or overdubbed vocal, leaving you arrested by Scott’s voice and her knack for always picking the perfect guitar tone. One of the record’s most jaw-dropping moments comes at the end of ‘Chains’, a song built almost entirely on subterranean bass drones and a skeletal beat, when we’re left with Scott’s exposed voice repeating the song’s final words, until she’s violently cut short by the jerk of a tape loop.

This sense of restraint and absence is especially effective in the record’s searing standout, ‘Honey’, and its conflicted chorus – “Honey, while you were ashing in your coffee / I was thinking about telling you what you’ve done to me” – and she drags out the word “honey” for an extra four beats, hovering dangerously over it, imbuing it with irony. It gets angrier on each repeat but never really releases; she never actually tells him, and she never tells the listener either, focusing instead on this vivid scene. Elsewhere, the long and wandering ‘November Baby’ seems to shift ambiguously between distinct memories of a former lover and a yearning for an idealised, absent partner – “I hear you on the tongues of strangers / I hang on every word they speak”.

These inward turns, and Scott’s achingly intimate delivery, give a feel of the record as ten separate songs rather than a full-length journey, but this approach allows for a compelling versatility that more than makes up for the lack of cohesion. Almost every track feels like an album closer, the emotional distillation of a long journey. Even Pavement-esque ’90s throwback ‘When Winter’s Over’ feels like a weary resolution, beneath its jaunty power chords. This makes the actual final track, ‘Waterfall’, all the more astonishing. In perhaps the record’s most dramatic image, the narrator gazes down at sharp rocks below, then matter-of-factly asks “Do you ever make it halfway down and think”, and then she gasps: “God, I never meant to jump at all.”

6/10• No Fairy Tale
• The ’90s
• Weak Day
• Walls
• A Hot Minute
• Sick, Sick, Sick
• Matches
• Married
• Swept Away
• He Loved You So Much
• Ami, I’m Sorry
• The Worst To most British listeners, Lisa Loeb is best known – well, let’s face it, only known – for her 1995 hit ‘Stay (I Missed You)’ and her subsequent Best Newcomer gong at the following year’s Brit Awards, where she suffered the ignominy of having her surname pronounced ‘Lobey’ by the award’s presenter Tom Jones. Much like other pop-rock hits of the ’90s such as Deep Blue Something’s ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ and Crash Test Dummies’ ‘Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm’, ‘Stay’ is one of those songs that’s certain to push the nostalgic pleasure buzzers of anyone over the age of thirty.

The introductory peal of Loeb’s acoustic guitar and the slight pause after those opening words “You say…” immediately conjure up images of plaid shirts worn baggily over tees, CDs priced at £12.99 and MTV’s ‘The Real World’ (not to mention the film in which the song featured, ‘Reality Bites’). Since then, Loeb has plugged away, releasing albums at a fairly steady rate. No Fairy Tale is her sixth studio record (not counting two collections of children’s songs) and it’s quick to address the elephant in the room – namely, Loeb’s present status as ‘I Love The Nineties’ compilation fodder. The second track, bluntly entitled ‘The 90s’, recalls a (presumably autobiographical) time when Loeb felt obliged to “cut my dress a little shorter / and get me ready for my video / one take, I’ll shake it up on MTV / all eyes on me”. Lest the that-was-then-and-this-is-now message not be sufficiently clear, the chorus then follows up with the declaration that “those were the ’90s / time flies so fast… / I don’t want to go back.”

In fairness, the music Loeb is making in 2013 is very different from the music she made in 1995. Anyone expecting twelve variations on limpid folk-rock may be pleasantly surprised to find that No Fairy Tale‘s billing as Loeb’s “poppy-punky-rock album” stands up pretty well. Accordingly, the album mostly substitutes electric riffs for acoustic strumming and the whole thing is buffed to a radio-ready shine. On the sleeve, Loeb resembles a libidinous Tina Fey, her windswept hairdo recalling the barnet sported by Liz Phair on her disastrous self-titled album from 2003. But in contrast to Phair’s (literally) naked attempt to nudge her songs onto mainstream playlists, it’s unlikely that anyone involved in the making of No Fairy Tale has particularly high commercial expectations. And with the stakes duly lowered, Loeb sounds like she’s having an absolute ball throughout.

Provided one goes into the experience with limited expectations, there’s plenty of uncomplicated fun to be had here. Only the most cynical listener would fail to derive any pleasure from the brisk hooks of ‘A Hot Minute’ and ‘The Worst’ (two tracks bearing surprise writing credits by Loeb fans Tegan & Sara), the Weezer-ish powerpop of the title track and the politely chugging ‘Married’. The album’s main flaw is its dated production: on the uptempo tracks, the listening space is engulfed with buzzy guitars that sound as if they’ve been ProTooled to within an inch of their lives. That said, No Fairy Tale is at its best when it is rocking out: whenever Loeb takes a breather, the cracks in the songwriting become more obvious. ‘Weak Day’, a mawkish ballad boasting lyrics such as “I’m not feeling well / I’m cracked like a bell”, is a contender for the most creatively bankrupt song of 2013 thus far.

Despite the involvement of Tegan & Sara, it’s unlikely that Loeb will enjoy a hipster-fuelled revival anytime soon. No Fairy Tale is a decent album that’s almost aggressively uncool, and for that it deserves our grudging respect.

6/10• Aching Bones
• Are You With Me
• Never Tell Me Mam The Whitburn coast, where Nadine Shah grew up, is a bleak and haunted place: the North Sea lashes pebble beaches and steep cliffs, the sky is more often grey than it is blue. And more than a few drops of this desolate atmosphere have permeated Shah’s debut EP, Aching Bones, which critics have been showering with excitable comparisons to the pantheon of gothic rock’s chief deities, Nick Cave and PJ Harvey.

The ghost of early Polly Jean certainly haunts the chorus of the EP’s opening title track, where Shah’s clear, confident voice recalls Harvey’s before she switched to largely singing in a higher register. Yet it’s the backing track rather than the voice that dominates ‘Aching Bones’: a penetrating, metallic clatter that, depending on your point of view, cleverly recalls Wearside’s heavy industrial heritage or turns a song into a racket.

It’s a trick that Shah pulls throughout the EP, with vocals and occasional instrumental touches – a tinkle of honky tonk piano on ‘Aching Bones’, a scrape of rockabilly guitar on ‘Are You With Me’ – counterpointing but never wholly distracting from the songs’ all too penetrating rhythms. Only on the closer ‘Never Tell Me Mam’ does Shah marshall the elements of her songwriting and production successfully. With the now familiarly insistent rhythm knocked into the background, the listener can at last feel her voice rather than the bassline. And it’s a lovely instrument, full of ache. Given room in the mix, her crisp jazz-singer phrasing conjures a feeling of claustrophobia from a lyric of shame and desire, rather than let it be rammed home by a ton of heavy metal.

Shah is an exciting talent but Aching Bones is a difficult record to like. For each moment of beauty there are another three of brutality. And while Shah’s torch-singer-turned-murder-balladeer schtick is conceptually tantalising, it’s badly let down in execution by sludgy production and arrangements. With a more assured hand at the tiller it’s not difficult to imagine Shah making an album that recalls Scott Walker, who she resembles in her willingness to write knotty music, and in her gifts as a singer. As it is, however, file this EP in the folder marked ‘Interesting experiments’ and take a long, brisk walk along the coastline to clear your head. You may need it when the album comes along.

What’s the origin of the name Delgado?

My mum’s surname is Delgado De Mendoza. She’s originally from Cádiz and it’s an old Spanish name. I was born in the Midlands and have shortened it for English ears.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever worked?

I’ve done so many jobs but the worst one was cleaning up men’s urinals in nightclubs. You find the nastiest and strangest things there. You don’t want to know.

What would you be if you weren’t a musician?

Probably a writer, or work in languages. But I threw myself into music and haven’t given myself the option of failing. Maybe it’s quite stupid but that’s the way I had to do it: have no fallback plan.

What’s the most physically challenging thing you have done?

Carrying lots of music equipment around Spain and touring around on public transport. You’re carrying all your suitcases, guitars, pedals. That’s pretty demanding.

What was the last thing you took a photograph of?

Let me have a look…it was a shopping list on the fridge. Because that way when I go shopping I don’t have to write down everything again and can remember what to buy.

What is your favourite instrument?

At the moment it’s piano. I taught myself the basics but can’t play it properly. I wish I could, it’s gorgeous. For rock ’n’ roll music it has to be the electric guitar. On my record I had violin and harmonium, and the musical saw. That’s an unpredictable instrument! You never know if it’s going to work or not, but when it does it’s amazing. I’m completely self-taught, so I can do most of what I need to do with plugins on the computer. Or I do a shout on Facebook to find the instrument I need. But I have such a great group of musicians around me that I don’t really need to play another instrument besides guitar, bass and maybe piano.

What are your biggest obstacles as a musician?

Money. Like for most musicians, especially with the fiscal climate at moment. We’re all struggling but I guess it’s always going to be that way. I recorded the album in a bedroom so it didn’t cost any money that way. But I can’t afford to tour so I can’t take my music out to people. For every little thing you need an investment and it’s so hard to get out there without it. But that’s what I chose.

Have you ever had any bizarre comparisons to other musicians?

Quite a lot. Over the years I’ve had lots of really strange comparisons, sometimes to people I’ve never heard of before. But it’s good that people come up with different stuff. If everyone said I sound like one person, I would be kind of boring I guess. So it’s good that I sound like lots of different things. Even in the reviews I’ve had for the album, there are about thirteen different genres people have tried to put me in. Which is weird because to me it’s a pop album, but to everyone else it’s something quite different.

What kind of person would have sex to your music?

People who like words maybe. Who like dark, broken stuff, but also a good tune. Something you can sing along to. People in their mid-twenties or above. It’s difficult to tell. You will always be surprised, you know.

What cultural things from Spain have influenced you?

I grew up with a lot of flamenco. It was just flamenco I had back then, and cheesy pop. But that was all good, I like cheesy pop! I just got into Spanish music as an adult. I did a cover version of ‘Palabras Para Julia‘, based on a poem by Juan Goytisolo and the music of Paco Ibañez. Really good words, that’s why I’ve covered it.

What was the last song you listened to obsessively?

There’s this flamenco singer called Estrella Morente, whose dad died two years ago…his name was Enrique Morente and he was a huge flamenco star. She sang at his funeral – you can see it on YouTube – and it was one of the most haunting things I’ve ever heard. I’ve listened to that probably twenty to thirty times. I can’t hear it without crying. It’s just gorgeous. She’s coming to play in London this March, I can’t wait for the concert.

Has a record ever really changed your life?

When I was a little girl and heard ‘West Side Story’ on vinyl – that gave me the idea of becoming a musician.

What’s the first possession you would rescue in a fire?

The guitar. Actually, it’s not my own guitar. Everything I use is borrowed, I don’t own anything. Poor musician bollocks but it’s true. My friend lets me use his guitar so I would rescue that guitar.

Are you a dog or a cat person?

Completely a cat person. My cat is called Pussy Bliss which sounds like a porn name and always makes people laugh, but it really suits her.

What are your views on feminism?

It’s necessary and it’s becoming more necessary. Feminism is a word that puts a lot of people off. Maybe it would be better called ‘equalism’. I like sexy, but I don’t like sexism. Where to draw the line is important. It seems that things are getting worse, but there are catalysts like the recent protests in Delhi and the reaction of the world. Also all the young men in India coming out in support and saying, “We’re not like those rapists. We don’t stand for this.” That’s uplifting. It’s a battle that still needs to be fought and all we can do is spread the word and be reasonable about it.

What makes you angry?

Injustice. I’m rubbish, cause when I get angry my use of words just goes down the toilet. I can’t say what I want to say. But always injustice, I thunder after injustice.

Have you ever taken to the streets in protest of something?

Yes, many times. When I was younger it was animal rights. I was also a hunt saboteur. But then I stopped being a vegetarian and changed a lot. Since then it’s been protests against the war in Iraq or against cuts, for example in education.

You’ve played in punk bands. What is the meaning of punk for you?

Music-wise, it’s late Seventies onwards: The Clash, Pistols, Buzzcocks, Televison, New Wave, The Wire. I love The Wire! And I love the aesthetics of punk, the androgyny. Breaking with the norm in a way that people take violent offence to. That is punk for me.

Don’t Sleep is out now on Four In The Morning Records. For more information, visit Rebekah’s official website.

How did you and Yuka first meet? Have you been friends for a long time?

I met her through Sean [Lennon] probably about ten years ago, maybe even more. I don’t remember exactly when. We’ve known each other for a long time; it’s all very connected in the New York kind of music family. Yuka has always been very supportive of my music. And, of course in the ‘90s as a teenager I was a fan of her band Cibo Matto. They were quite popular in Montréal so I knew who she was, and I really looked up to her in many ways. When I was looking for producers for this album there were some things always grating on me – a feeling that I wanted to work with a woman, someone who was also an artist. I don’t know whether it was because of the death of my mother, in that perhaps I wanted to be taken care of in a way, or just that I wanted a female energy on this record. I’m not sure, but it was my husband Brad’s idea to call her up and ask her to do it. She was really, really excited, so that’s how it happened.

Looking at the liner notes for I Know You’re Married…, you worked with five different producers, four mixers and ten engineers. That’s a lot of personnel. Making this album must have felt so different.

Each album has been very much a different experience. The first one was with Brad, and it was really the two of us forging our personal relationship as well as a working relationship, and it took a long while to make. The second one was with a lot of different producers, as you mentioned, and had its difficulties for that reason. This one was, for me, a kinder and gentler experience that I’ve ever had in the studio. I would walk in and Yuka would offer me tea and a sandwich or something to eat and compliment me on my scarf or something. There was something very gentle about it that I really appreciated, because I had had a difficult year after losing my mother. I really appreciated being taken care of in many ways. And Yuka did so much of the work in that I would come in and sing and play the guitar, and then I would leave and go the movies or something like that. It was kind of exciting whenever I came back into the studio as she would have put in a lot of effort and time and come up with things that I never would have thought of. I really leaned on her and her musical brilliance on this record.

The electronic elements that you and Yuka worked into this album really do complement the songs rather than intrude on them. Did you spend a lot of time getting that balance right?

I knew that I wanted to make a record that was more keyboard based, with some elements of electronica and some programming, because I wanted to stay away from what often tends to happen with singer-songwriters, where it turns into a sort of Americana sound or something. When you add instrumentation onto the voice and acoustic guitar, things can kind of get more country or something – it just happens – so I wanted to try and avoid that, which was one the main reasons for asking Yuka to produce. At first we started out doing things that were a little bit more electronic sounding, but Yuka quickly recognised that the essence of these songs was really the voice and the guitar. It’s how they’re written; it’s what I’ve always done. It’s my sound, basically. So I think she realised that we had to keep that sound in there, that it had to be prevalent, and that what we needed to do was to complement it with some programming and stranger sounds. We were careful to not lose the voice and guitar as the focal point.

Speaking of your voice, ‘Radio Star’ and ‘I Want To Make An Arrest’ really stand out in particular as songs that are more vocally demanding than we’ve tended to hear from you in the past – on record, at least.

I do sing out more on this record, which is the way I’ve sung live for my whole career. Usually when I record it’s a more introverted voice that comes out – it’s just one of the things that happens when I work in a studio – so for this record I really wanted to recreate the energy that comes out of live performance. It’s fun to sing songs like that, as long as you’re in good voice. I mean, I guess you can keep on dropping key and find a way to do it; there’s always a way to sing a song! But when on the road touring you have to be really careful not to blow out your voice. You know, because some of the songs are right on the edge of where I would go into my high range and I have to yell. It’s fun, but I have to be careful. I’ve always done a certain amount of opera singing, so I’ve been forced to do various types of vocal acrobatics and I’m prepared to go all the way when I need to. Also, to be honest, a lot of what you hear on this record was because of working with Yuka in that I felt so comfortable with her that I allowed myself to do things in the studio that maybe I wouldn’t normally do if I felt more shy or constrained.

It sounds like it was a really nice process.

It was. It was really fun, which I’m not so used to in the sense that there has always been a certain amount of arguments and tears in the studio. You know, as a couple, Brad and I are always together so things can get really intense in the studio when we’re working. So it was really great to be very much free of that, and I think it’s exactly how I needed to be treated at that moment. Honestly, I don’t think I would have been able to handle anything else. Between still reeling from my mother’s death, and having the baby, I don’t think I could have subjected myself to another emotional rollercoaster in the studio. The songs are already really aggressive and sad, emotional and pissed off, so I don’t think I could have afforded to have that be the working relationship too. So it worked out perfectly for me.

There are a couple of songs on the album written from the perspective of a woman overcoming problems in her marriage, and knowing how honest you generally are in your songwriting people will no doubt assume you are singing about your relationship with Brad. Has it been hard for you to find a balance between being a mother and a wife and an artist?

As hard as for anybody else, even if I do sometimes say that other people have it easier [laughs]. Brad has always been behind me whatever I wanted to write, sing or talk about. With the first record, and even the second record to an extent, I was writing songs about other men – previous loves and things like that – so he’s sort of used to that level of honesty. I mean, to the extent that an artist will say whatever she thinks or feels. That being said, although he had heard some of the songs before, when I was writing, I don’t think he really played the record that much before we started doing shows for it. Then during one of the first shows we did together – he was playing bass with me on stage –I think he realised just at that moment that he was a little bit sad and a little bit freaked out about some of the lyrics. So I recognised that I had to talk to him and make sure that we’re alright, and that this is alright. I know that he doesn’t want to put any constraints on me, but it’s also very important for me to cherish and nurture the relationship. I think because we’re both children of divorce we’ve always wanted to stay married, but staying married is a challenge for a lot of people – to just stay in a relationship is difficult. So I think that’s what I am singing about. I’m sort of saying, “Yes, this is tough,” and it’s something I need to be able to do in my songs because I think if I were to feel as though I had to edit myself in my songs…well, you know.

Yes. Your songs really speak to me personally in many ways. I’m a child of divorce too. Like you, I also work with my husband and we have a young son, and it is difficult in some ways to figure out how to stay married with a new baby.

Wow, yes, especially when women are working or supporting the family – it’s the financial constraints dynamic. It’s also difficult in the music industry, which is just not that conducive to having a kid. I’m with Arcangelo all the time, of course, because I’m his mother. I can’t just leave him at home, but it takes a lot of patience. I’m asking a lot from my family to follow me on this road but I think that they’re willing.

With Arcangelo keeping you on your toes in the last couple of years do you feel like you’ve been forced to focus or write in ways that you maybe hadn’t done before?

Luckily I’ve never been that prolific, and luckily I’ve never been that obsessive about writing. Now I never thought I would have said that because I’ve always been sort of sad and angry that I wasn’t the sort of artistic soul who wakes up and heads straight to my instrument and writes a song. I’ve always sort of gone to the fridge and made a sandwich [laughs]. Those were my instincts. But that’s actually quite helpful to me now because I have to spend a lot of time with my family still, and a lot of things are required of me in a day to day way, so I don’t feel like I’m completely neglecting my music and my art because it was always something that I was able to go to when I needed to go to it; to just close the door and put the time in.

What happened right after my mum died and we came home with Arcangelo, whenever I would try and pick up the guitar I would end up in a puddle on the floor because it was just too intense. After several months I knew I needed to get started with writing, because I always wanted to make another record relatively quickly. I didn’t want to be off the scene for too long after having a child. There is always a danger that a pregnancy might stop you from doing a lot of stuff, so I knew that I needed to keep working. I hired a babysitter to come in for three or four hours a day, just so I could go upstairs and make that separation. It was really enjoyable actually. I could just become who I was before, you know. I would light a cigarette and it would be like I was twenty-five again, sitting on the couch with the guitar being myself. And then I would go downstairs, make dinner, and that was that; like, “Now we’re doing home time.”

You’ve said in the past that you felt a bit intimidated by the prospect of singing your mother’s songs. Was there some trepidation with tackling ‘Proserpina’, or was there something that compelled you to take the song and make it your own?

Well, I knew that I was going to have to do something. I wanted to do something, and I didn’t necessarily want to just put on ‘Tell My Sister’, which is a song I had been performing a lot in the tribute shows that Rufus and I have been doing. It didn’t really make sense, phonically, with the rest of the record. I had actually tracked ‘Proserpina’ just a few months after Kate died, for another project where it was never used. I remembered it when I was in the studio with Yuka a year and a half later; like, “Oh wait a minute. There’s this thing I did.” So I called up the engineer and asked them to send me the track, and we both sat down and listened to it.

I think both of us, and Yuka in particular, quickly realised that it had to be on the record. I mean, it’s a very beautiful song, and a very important song from my perspective. It spoke to us, sort of reappeared in another form. I don’t know whose workings those were, but I’m glad for it. So what we did then was to add some touches that made sense with the album – the ad lib singing and stuff like that. And then soon after doing that and incorporating it into the record it really started to seem more and more like the cornerstone of the album, which makes sense because, you know, Kate is referred to so much on this record. Some of the songs are about her, about her laugh. So ‘Proserpina’ became this wonderful final gift that she left me. This incredible song.

Do you have any plans to make any future recordings, maybe some of the stuff that you’ve done from some of the tribute concerts?

I think our family will be doing stuff around my mother and her music for a long time because there’s so much of it. Rufus and I have been working with the producer Joe Boyd, who’s kind of a famous guy in the folk world and produced Kate and Anna’s first two albums, on a live album from the tribute concerts with all the different guest singers. People like Norah Jones, Antony, Joan Wasser, Neil Tennant, and Richard, Linda and Teddy Thompson, and of course Anna McGarrigle. We’ve compiled about thirty songs from the concerts, so that will be a nice tribute to Kate and will come out on Nonesuch. Also, two years ago Rufus and I started making some recordings of Kate’s songs, just the two of us, so that might come out one day too. I don’t know, because there are lots of ways to approach these tributes because her songs were so great, because she was so great; we just want to get it right. We’re also hoping to maybe get a theatrical release of a documentary [‘Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You’] about Kate made by a woman named Lian Lunson, which includes many of the performances from the tribute shows as well as documentary elements.

Obviously you knew Kate was well loved during her lifetime, but since she has died has it taken you by surprise to see how much warmth and affection people have for her?

The thing about Kate and Anna is that although they weren’t super famous, whoever knew them really loved them because they were so different, really brilliant. Anna’s obviously still is, but my mother’s personality was so enigmatic. Is that the word I’m looking for? I mean, it was sort of from another era. They were like characters in a novel, a Brontë sister novel or something. They were very special, very beautiful, in the way that they were together. And the way that they played all their own instruments and sang everything made them very special as musicians. And there’s also the fact that they did things the way they wanted to. You know, bringing up their kids, living in Canada, and not making a record for eight years. It was very mystical, in some ways.

You’ve now become a spokesperson for the Sarcoma Foundation, could you describe a little bit about what that role entails for you?

Rufus and I wanted to lend our names and faces, if they were helpful, to raising money in the fight to find the cure for cancer, and specifically sarcoma. Because sarcoma is an orphan cancer there’s very little research that goes into finding a cure and treatments. Now we have the Kate McGarrigle Sarcoma Research Fund, which is also geared towards finding a cure for sarcoma, but also raising money for anything to do with helping out people with sarcoma. It’s usually a young person’s cancer, and many people can’t work, can’t pay their rent or can’t get to where they need to go. Or if they’re particularly uncomfortable in hospital, there might be some things we can supply to make their lives a little bit easier.

It’s really coming to the forefront that sometimes the research that’s done for one type of cancer can end up being a good treatment for another form of cancer, so we also need to keep it open as well and be open-minded about how to use the money. Kate always sort of fancied herself as a little bit of a scientist, so that was the side of the research fund that was interesting to her. And on our Board of Directors we have the two doctors who treated her, so they help us to make sure that the money goes directly to people who are researching. It’s very interesting for us. I mean, here in the United States in particular it’s really private money that fuels a lot of what happens. Fundraising is a big part of it, so we are happy to do anything that we can do to help. My mother, in her own lifetime, also raised money for the Sarcoma Foundation so we don’t want to forget that legacy of hers. It’s a disease and an illness with a shocking and disturbing end, for us and for her. We’re not over it. I’m her daughter.

Over the summer you prompted a very interesting discussion about the difficulty of balancing the books as a touring and recording musician, and it all got kind of heated. Did some of the responses shock you or did it merely confirm that making music these days is becoming more and more of an uphill struggle?

It didn’t totally shock me. Most of the replies that I got on Twitter were super supportive, but I think that people are built in such a way that if everyone around them is doing something, it becomes incorporated into their moral structure. It’s very hard to think you’re doing anything wrong if everybody is doing it; you feel entitled to it. When people are able to do something, they feel entitled to do it, and when they have been doing something for a while they feel entitled to keep doing it. So I think, psychologically, that’s really the uphill battle. Obviously I have a lot of objections to that, but the main one is when people just don’t wanna look, when they don’t wanna hear the reality of it. Or they argue with you about what the reality of it is, and I find that kind of obnoxious.

Did it feel like a bit of a kick in the teeth that Charmer leaked then just a few weeks later, so early ahead of release?

Yeah, it’s horrible. It’s horrible because it’s like you just see your livelihood going down the drain.

Have you had to deal with such an early leak before or is this something new to you?

I think this is pretty new. I mean the last record was a while ago. Look, I don’t know who leaked it and I don’t why. Was it done to deliberately fuck with me? I don’t know what people’s motivations are, but of course it’s gonna interfere with my livelihood and my ability to finance the next record. That’s the effect that it has. That just stands to reason, and you would think these people might think twice about doing what they do, but they don’t. So, you know, I can’t spend any time thinking about it.

Of course. And with every leak, people download it and then react publicly to it long before the album is legally available. Did any of that feed back to you in this case?

Well, you know, it hurts my feelings to read things like, “I just downloaded your record for free, it’s great!” – that doesn’t make me feel good. I try not to put myself in a place where I see things like that, because it will hurt me. You know what I mean? Like, I have to prepare for tour, to go on tour and work, and I can’t do it if I feel like it’s for nothing. I can’t do it if I feel like there’s no reason. I have to believe in the fairytale of there being a reason, that at the end of the day I will be able to pay my mortgage and maybe have some left over enough to make another record someday. I have to believe that or I can’t do it. Sorry to get so irritated.

No, no, you’re perfectly entitled to be annoyed. Given the speed at which the music industry appears to be eroding, do you feel like, with every record release, you need to sort of relearn how the land lies in terms of the obstacles that you face?

Yeah. I think, at this point, every record is different. I think there will probably come a time when I can’t make a hard copy of the record anymore, or just a really limited special package. I mean, that time seems to be coming pretty quickly, so that seems to be the next move.

It’s a sad reality. Do you ever see yourself maybe exploring the option of crowdsourcing?

I don’t know. I think my manager is really against it but I’m not really sure why. I don’t think I have much against it personally, so I’m not really sure. But I do know other people who are really anti the idea so I’m thinking maybe there is something I’m missing. Like, is there a downside to it? So I’m not really sure what to think, but, well, if people wanna invest in a record then it makes sense to get funding that way. They’re paying for it in advance and that’s a good thing, as opposed to me paying for it and then people taking it for free [laughs]. So that seems like a good thing. So if there’s a downside I can’t really see it, but I’m also not super attuned to what’s going on.

Despite all the difficulties with releasing records, you recently talked about how your relationship to making music has changed over the years – that it’s only been in a positive way, which is really great to hear. Can it kind of be inferred from that that you consider every new album you make to be your best, even if it’s only in a technical way?

I don’t know. I guess I don’t really think of it in terms of ‘best’. Probably every time I write a song I think it’s my best because I’m the most excited about it, but that’s probably just what happens when you’re involved and working on it. So, yeah, I don’t know. It’s just that each album is a little different according to the kind of production I’ve been interested in.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that actually. I really liked what you said in that same interview about a large percentage of talent is being smart enough to choose the things that are appropriate for you. It made me wonder whether the approach to each album is something that you spend months mulling over before it finally clicks, or whether it’s more immediate for you.

It’s a bit of a mull, and it also has a lot to do with the musicians you’re playing with and what they’re bringing to the table. Sometimes the things they play are an interesting and happy accident that you want to follow up on and utilise. Charmer was more of a stylistic thing, more about the kind of production standard I was listening to. You know, that kind of post New Wave stuff, or post disco, pre New Wave records like Blondie’s Parallel Lines. I was listening to a lot of that kind of thing, where rock bands first met synthesisers. That was a big inspiration to me.

You’re someone who has consistently proved that changes in style don’t have to be these big, grand gestures to effectively distinguish one album from another. Music blogs seemed to have imposed more of a premium on innovation than on quality and experience; is that something that has troubled you, or something that you’ve given any thought to?

I’m just not one of those people who have such a wide and rapidly changing interest in form. I think that there’s a handful of styles that are kind of appropriate for me and that I’m interested in as a listener. I’m not that fascinated with the idea of complete reinvention every record, or even partial reinvention actually. I kind of like the idea of doing what I do and trying to do it better each time, just trying to write a better song each time. It’s mostly about the songwriting for me; it’s not really as much about the presentation and production or the style and instrumentation.

Speaking of production, you said that you had to choose between ‘hot’ and ‘dynamic’ versions of the masters for Charmer and I was wondering what the difference was and which one you went with?

[laughs] I honestly couldn’t tell the difference! Do you know what? I think we had somebody else master it – two different attempts with two different people – and I couldn’t really tell the difference. The thing was that I didn’t really have a player to listen to the record. We never listen to music in the house so I didn’t have a CD player. I like listening to music in the car, but at home I only had the computer, which just makes everything sound exactly the same. So I finally, just recently, got a player for my house and set up some speakers, but the car was the best I could do at the time.

I was really glad that you put this record out on vinyl. I love the artwork, though it kind of feels like I’m being glamoured if I look at it for too long.

Yeah, it’s very encouraging that there are people out there who are still listening to vinyl or just discovering vinyl. I think there’s a vinyl version of Lost In Space, but it was something that happened after the fact, that somebody else did. I honestly can’t remember! My art director Gail Marowitz, who I’ve worked with on every record, actually did all the artwork herself this time. We often have illustrators that we use, but she was really inspired to do this one on her own.

With The Forgotten Arm winning a Grammy for Best Package, and @#%&*! Smilers being nominated for the same award, do you feel like there’s an expectation on you now to keep making these elaborate packages?

To me that’s one of the fun parts of making a record, to try to come up with an artwork approach that reflects the vibe of the record. I actually tried some stuff myself for Charmer that didn’t quite work out. Then Gail came up with some things I thought were really perfect, because I knew I wanted it to be slightly creepy looking but have sort of bright, clashing colours. I think she did a really perfect job of reflecting the sound of the music.

You do a bit of painting yourself, don’t you? Is that something that’s for your own private enjoyment only, or do you see yourself maybe having an exhibition of your art at some point?

You know, I don’t do it enough to even get to that level. I mean, knowing a couple of ‘real’ artists, it’s a really different thing that they do. When you devote your life to something like that, it’s a different thing. You can really tell when somebody knows what they’re doing and when they’re really saying something through their art. For me, it’s like I’ll paint a picture of a friend and if it looks kind of like them I feel like the piece is a success, but then that’s a pretty low art standard [laughs].

You had a couple of collaborations come out recently. I was especially interested to hear the Steve Vai track – what an interesting pairing!

Yeah! I actually knew Steve when we were at Berklee, way back in the day. Not that well, but a little bit. He was going out with a friend of mine – actually, they’re married now. They’ve been married for ages. How that song happened was sort of an odd coincidence because I’d just been talking about Steve Vai with the band. People were talking about Frank Zappa and I was talking about Steve Vai and how he plays with Zappa and that I’d known him at school. Then the next day, just really out of the blue, I got an email from him asking if I would be interested in working on this song. I was like, “Yeah, why not I’ll give it a try.” And, you know, it turned out to be way harder than I thought because his music is so much more rhythmically complicated than mine. I really had to do a lot of work on it so it was very challenging, but really fun. Steve’s a great guy so that was a very nice experience. The Ben Gibbard duet was really nice to do too. I think he’s a great songwriter and I love his whole deal, but I really love that song. I think it’s beautiful and I’m really glad that he asked me to sing with him on it.

It’s great to hear that you’re already writing songs for the next record. I was intrigued by your claim on Twitter that you had a new song that’s the saddest you have ever written – that song has a lot of competition!

Yeah. On reflection, it’s probably not quite as sad as it’s sort of a sad love song. I think I’ve written sadder songs, because if you’re ranking sadness I think songs about the hopelessness of life are probably sadder than songs about a relationship that doesn’t work. So I think you have to rank that kind of existential angst above relationship angst.

For sure. Okay, last question. I was fascinated by an interview I read about your creative process in which you talked about how you like to attend twelve-step programme meetings, and I wanted to push you a little more on that. Like, what motivates you to go to those meetings and how it helps you as a songwriter?

I love the twelve-step thing because I think that trying to become more self-aware is sort of a duty that everybody has. I came across this idea somewhere – I can’t remember who said it – that if you’re not trying to be more self-aware, it’s like driving without having taken any driving lessons or having read the manual. You’re sort of out there endangering other people because you really just careen into everybody; you don’t know what you’re doing and you act out all your weird issues on people that think it’s their fault. So I really do place a premium on the idea of just trying to be aware of your own source of feelings and how they impact your actions.

With the twelve-step thing you can just sit in the meeting and listen to people talk, and there’s always something you can relate to. I don’t have a drug or an alcohol problem or anything like that, but I can relate to people talking about the idea of becoming fixated on something or valuing something. You know, making some other thing or person as if it’s a higher power in your life and all the craziness that can come from that. There’s always something interesting that you can hear in a meeting and relate to. Whatever kind of meeting it is. So I go often. And it’s not about it being for writing; it’s about trying to be a better person.

There’s only one day left to enter our competition to win tickets to Wears The Trousers and Four In The Morning Records present Rebekah Delgado and She Makes War at the Water Rats in London on February 6. Do it! Do it now! To tempt you just that little bit more, we’re delighted to bring you the first peek at Rebekah’s peculiar new video, for the title track of her debut album (out now). In her own words: