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of organic, old school live sound”.
“With Charlie it was basically a co-writing
session,” she continues. “I think it was
probably a bit odd for Charlie because he
doesn’t do much of that and people that he
writes with, Alt-J, he’s grown up with. So,
I think it was quite odd to have this little
Kiwi lass want to spend a few days of soul
searching and writing. But, it was cool, it
turned out really well."
As for the wraith-like and enigmatic Gibbons,
Wigmore is a big fan of her group Portishead.
“She is got a set of pipes, that’s for sure,” she
enthuses. “It’s haunting how she uses her
voice; it’s spooky and creepy. I love their whole
vibe of what she’s about.”
If
Blood to Bone
has a unifying factor, it’s a
sense of hard, unbidden truths.
The dark
Black Parade
was recorded after "a
showdown of a fight" between Wigmore and
her partner (the track's vocal is a first take). In
May, the clip for
New Rush
was posted online
to public consternation: it depicts a bleeding
Wigmore with an arrow in her guts struggling
through a desolate landscape. Think
The
Hunger Games
shot by Anton Corbijn.
“It’s quite a harrowing video, which involves
me throwing myself off cliffs and standing in
ice-cold water,” she reflects. “I have a whole
new respect for actors! There’s kind of a lot of
unanswered questions at the end of it, on how
that happened: do I survive? Do I go on and
live? I’m not sure.
“It was interesting, this one, because this
whole album’s been quite visual for me. I’ve
almost seen it before
I’ve heard it, which was cool. It’s a nice way to
make music.”
29
MUSIC
FEATURE
Gin Wigmore
has moved to Los Angeles and
reinvented herself along the way. She tells Jonathan
Alley about her new album
Blood to Bone
.
G
in Wigmore has always known
what she’s about. But that’s not to
say things don’t evolve in fascinating
ways: her 2009 debut
Holy Smoke
was
vaguely rooted in contemporary alt-country
and recorded with Ryan Adams’ band The
Cardinals.
Fast forward to 2015, and Wigmore’s living
in LA with her new husband Jason Butler
of the band Let Live, looking every part the
modern rocker resplendent in tattoos and black
leather, and working with Alt J’s producer and
a cult photographer. Her new album
Blood to
Bone,
is her first since 2011’s
Gravel and Wine
.
But despite slinking into the seductive jaws
of the City of Angels, her feet remain well and
truly on the ground. “You can dream
big. But, you have to be decisive,
have to have the whole picture
painted and then use LA to
fill in the colour.“ she tells
STACK
. “But there’s a lot of
people ready to put their spin
on your life: that can take you
down all sorts of dark rabbit
holes in LA.”
With all manner of
new musical references
informing
Blood to Bone
,
from Alt-J to Portishead’s
Beth Gibbons, Wigmore is
soaking up influence from
everywhere.
New Rush
,
the first single from the
album was co-written
with Alt J collaborator
Charlie Andrew, a
process Wigmore
describes as “straddling
those two worlds of
electronic and this kind
Blood to Bone
by Gin Wigmore is
out now