Interview - Gra4ce

Mal Lythe
Apr 13, 2020
4 min read

I’ll start with the new solo album you’ve just released “Nesaea”. What/who would you say you’re biggest influences are to your solo work? One of the biggest influences for this album was Pauline Oliveros, I was reading ‘Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice’ at the time and it really broadened my practice of deep listening. I started exploring and practicing deep listening after doing a residency with Shiva Feshareki and Loraine James through Brighter Sounds. The project is called ‘Both Sides Now’ it is a three-year program for young and emerging female artists and industry professionals featuring residencies, commissions, training and apprenticeships, alongside national and international showcases, this introduced me to many other womxn in the music industry. A few other influences were definitely Grimes, Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram.

I’ve never seen you perform you’re stuff as Gra4ce live yet. How would you describe your live shows? Back in 2017 and 2018 I performed a few times under ‘Gra4ce’. However due to Venus’ live gigs, it became hard to balance the two. I was gigging with my friend Maddie, who I collaborate a lot with. You can find all of our work on my Bandcamp and Soundcloud. We usually sit together and bounce ideas off of each other. At the time we were performing, Maddie was based in London and I was in Leeds so it became quite difficult rehearsing. Therefore Maddie set up her own page under ‘Madeleine Smyth,’ which you should check out. Now we are both back in Hartlepool we are hoping to work together more and perhaps we will start doing some shows again soon.

Do you have any shows or releases planned after the whole lockdown is over? Currently the only shows planned are with Venus as I do a lot of the admin and tour management for them, it’s a lot of work to book all of the logistics of tours however I thoroughly enjoy it. But I’m hoping to get involved with some more electronic projects in the North East now that I’m back home.

You also play as part of the popular band Venus. How different is it for you in performing as Gra4ce and as part of that band? It’s a very different atmosphere for sure. In 2019, I put on a night called Landscape of Dreams, it was a night full of electronic music, I definitely feel and see the differences of the two genres when I perform live however I really like performing with both.

As well as your album “Nesaea” Venus also recently released the first EP “Wicked Things”. How would you say you and the band feel so far to the positive response the EP has got? I’ve been really happy with the support people have given us. It’s been a difficult one as we had a full tour planned and a bunch of festival dates that we were super excited to get on, on top of that we were going to have vinyl and CD sales to push the physical side to the EP too. This would have helped us promote the EP however I can’t thank the reviewers, our fans, friends and family who have shared, bought and streamed the EP so far. Every little bit helps. It’s really heart warming to hear people are enjoying the tracks and hopefully helping them kill some time during lockdown.

Would you say that some of your Gra4ce influence gets added into the stuff that you do with Venus? Definitely, I think with our two tracks ‘Freaky Friday’ & ‘Amy’ you can hear the influence. When we were writing Freaky Friday, I had just finished my residency with Shiva Feshareki, so I’d been so used to sitting in dark rooms improvising with loads of people on electronic instruments. During out Venus rehearsal, Jess and I just started playing off of each other, improvising. I was like ‘TURN THE LIGHTS OFF’ and that was the birth of ‘Freaky Friday.’

What have been some of your favorite gigs so far as both Gra4ce and Venus? With Venus, I think my favorite shows have been The Studio when we played in February 2020, I was just amazed by the local talent that night and I was so overwhelmed by the support from my hometown. I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed every single Newcastle show we have done as I always catch up with friends and family when we play the North East. I can’t thank Andy from the Kids Are Solid Gold enough, he has supported us so much from the beginning and has always pushed us! As Gra4ce, my favorite night was ‘Landscape of Dreams’ as I collaborated with a bunch of talented artists and I was so relieved with how the night went as it was for my final year at university.

And finally if you could recommend five acts from the north east who would they be? Only five is difficult as there are so many acts that I love from the North East. I definitely recommend Marketplace, MeLostMe, Madeleine Smyth, Ocean Floor and Leopard Rays.