Spotlight On... Faith Eliott

It’s been just over five years since Edinburgh-based artist, singer and musician Faith Eliott released their gorgeous debut album, Impossible Bodies, via OK Pal, the label they run with friend and fellow musician Hailey Beavis. Following the release of recent singles callisto pt. i, an ode of unrequited love from a hagfish to a giant isopod, and snowglobe, on 30 May they release their new album dryas via Lost Map Records.

A gorgeously detailed and delicate record, its ten tracks are exquisitely structured, with moments of light and dark giving the record shape and intrigue, Eliott's songwriting and storytelling glistening atop beautiful instrumentation. Ahead of its release, we catch up with Eliott to talk poetry, songwriting and collaboration.

You have a very poetic style and use a lot of imagery in your music – you’ve said in the past that poetry is something you’ve loved since you were a child, so I'd love to know who are some of the poets, writers and songwriters that have inspired you growing up and over the years?
When I was a teenager my sister and I were on this poetry forum where you had a profile for your own work, and could post and comment. We built up a real community there and a lot of the writing that feels most formative in my life was what other people on it were writing, rather than published poets. Most people posted with usernames so it makes it impossible to find it again or know what they are up to now! It also means a lot of my own stuff from those years is lost to broken hard drives and the inky depths of the internet. But the back and forth, the feedback, the being held accountable, the sense of belonging – that was so important!

My sister still writes and she is honestly absolutely brilliant. Phoebe Nicholson, look her up! She also founded and runs the Oxford Poetry Library, which started off as a big cargo bike full of poetry books that she would hoof around outdoor markets and such. But now there’s a premises with open mics and workshops and everything. I’m very proud. I don’t even wrestle my way into her bedroom unsolicited anymore to read her own poetry out loud to her in a whiny voice to piss her off, like I did when we were kids.

Some tangible poet faves though – Ada Limón, Natalie Diaz, Anne Carson, Sylvia Plath, Patricia Lockwood, Mary Oliver...

And in terms of lyric writers, Richard Dawson’s album Nothing Important cracked open the idea of what a song could be for me, especially in terms of how to accommodate lyrical maximalism. I love it. Then there’s songwriters like Sibylle Baier and Molly Drake for simplicity and gentle directness. Magnetic Fields for conceptually perfect songs like The Book of Love and Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin. Dory Previn, Diane Cluck, Silver Jews, Adrianne Lenker, Laurie Anderson.

Storytelling through poetry is prevalent in your songwriting, combining the surreal with the real, with the possibility of your words having endless meanings, depending on the listener and their interpretation. Why are you so drawn to this style of songwriting and how do you feel it helps you convey your emotions as a songwriter?
In your question you mention lyrics having endless meanings depending on the listener. I’m totally happy with that being the perception from the listener standpoint, but I think I actually like to be very deliberate about the words I choose and why – in the editing stage at least. One of the loose rules I apply in songwriting is that I want to be able to explain what a song is about in a sentence. Whether that’s a love song for a giant sea sponge, a description of a volcanic eruption, or a reflection on a certain heartbreak or some emotional process. I don’t enforce a strict limitation right away, but as soon as the word doc tabs reach a tipping point, I ask myself what specifically it is I’m trying to say, and siphon off what isn’t relevant.

I’m so interested in what a song can be. I think songwriting is often assumed to be a confessional exercise and there’s a pressure on songwriters to be “authentic”. It makes the label "singer-songwriter" feel a bit cringey somehow! I get a lot from how songwriting creates a space to be sentimental, dramatic, heartbroken, existential, I think these are strengths of the medium. But the authenticity part sometimes trips me up. Do we need to restrict songs to truthtelling or earnestness?

I love to make myself little themed mixtapes of songs that I think divert from this trope one way or another. Songs that are fictional, instructional, songs that describe a recipe or a historical event. Like Rachael Dadd’s song Rice Triangle, Marais & Miranda’s How Does a Frog Become a Frog? or Jeffrey Lewis’s The Fall of the Soviet Union.

All that said, in the purest sense, I think writing encourages me to find meaning in whatever capacity is necessary at the time. Especially when I’m really struggling or depressed and it feels like everything is meaningless and formless. Trying to write is like taking myself by the hand with reassurance and saying – “OK, whatever it is, describe it.” And from there, the feeling shifts into something I can talk to, have a relationship with and accommodate.

What’s the songwriting process like for you when it comes to imagery and thought gathering for a song? Are there specific life events that have helped shape and inspire this record, or do you have a more fluid and open process to letting certain observations creep into the lyrics?
I have my kind of mainline interests that I’m always going back to for inspiration. Animals, natural history, medieval history… but I like to keep it open. Ideas rarely come to me whole, they arrive more like puzzles I need to solve.

On my first album, Impossible Bodies, I had a solid concept – I wanted every song to be about or represented by a different animal. I think after that release I thought to myself that maybe I was trying to hide behind the theme a bit. So with this one, I tried to keep it looser. There’s still plenty of thematic and researched material, but it applies to one song at a time. laacher see 13000BCE, for example – that’s about a Pleistocene volcanic eruption. I was thinking a lot about big climactic shifts in prehistory, past people and migration, Doggerland.

thys creatur – that one I wrote after reading about The Monster of Ravenna, an apocryphal late Renaissance-era monstrous birth, born with an eye on its knee, a cloven hoof and a horn, amongst other things! It’s about marginalised bodies as moralised bodies and it was a vehicle to express feelings about body dysmorphia, queerness and fatness.

The songs on dryas cover quite a large time-span in my life. I already work quite slowly and I think COVID slowed me down even more. Some of the earliest songs on the album I wrote about five to six years ago now, while some I wrote right before the recording started in 2023. Overall, the arc of the album is tied to an emotional shift over these years… trying to live with more adaptability, letting go of cynicism and shame.

I actually feel like for the next album I might go back to a more clearly defined, objective theme though, haha.

You’ve talked about the importance of community and friendship in your creative practice, and on dryas, you worked closely alongside friend and musician Robyn Dawson, who produced, engineered and arranged the record. You also worked alongside a whole host of other talented musicians to bring the record to life, with recording taking place at The Big Shed in Perthshire. What was the process like for you and Robyn working together? And how did you decide which other musicians to invite into the process? What went down at The Big Shed?
Robyn is one of my dearest pals and we had worked together in a bunch of different musical settings before we embarked on this record! We met when I was singing and she was playing violin with Meursault years back, and she has played in my live act for yonks now. Robyn decided she wanted to learn recording and production at about the same time I was mulling over how I wanted to go about making another album, so things just fell into place! We already had an established creative shorthand and it just felt like an exciting and comfortable pairing.

I was lucky enough to get some Creative Scotland funding which enabled Robyn to record and produce with Susan Bear in a mentorship role. Suse is another close friend and we had collaborated on a number of occasions, including making an 8-bit video game together for a Glad Foundation residency during COVID. She’s an incredible producer and artist with amazing technical fluency so we knew she would fill in any gaps Robyn might have as a newbie to production. She also played bass and synths. The other big contributor was Signy Jakobsdottir, who played percussion. She’s incredibly versatile and her approach to percussion is really unique, with a focus on texture and melody which I think really complemented the songs.

The bulk of the album was recorded at The Big Shed – a community building up in rural Perthshire. The first week-long stint was just Robyn and I getting the vocals and guitar down. Then the second week was all four of us. It was an absolute dream team. Just dedicated focus on the project, eating salad together, greeting the local pigs, swimming in the lake. 

A few other bits and bobs were recorded afterwards in various flat kitchens around Edinburgh and Glasgow – Ali Hendry on trumpet, Katarzyna Wiktorski on piano, Pual N on alto recorders. Brian Pokora also stepped in to record callisto pt i as I had written it too late to be recorded in the initial stint. The album was mixed at Chamber Studio thanks to the wonderful generosity of Graeme Young. We initially planned for Suse to mix the record too, but Robyn ended up picking up a lot of confidence along the way and mixed it herself, the wee scamp. 

I could not be luckier to work with all these beautiful humans! I am horrendously grateful.

Image: Faith Eliott by Flannery O'Kafka

The album is out at the end of this week, and you’re celebrating with a launch show at the Leith FAB Cricket Club on 13 June. What can people expect on the night? Do you have any surprises up your sleeve?
Yes! The Leith Franklin Academical Beige Cricket Club! It’s a full band show, which is a really rare treat for me. Me, Suse, Signy and Robyn with a few additional cameos. It’s rumoured that the legendary Reuben Taylor might make an appearance! The amazing Firestations are supporting. Honestly, the past few months have been so rammo that I’m only just starting to contemplate my outfit. I think when I announced the launch I promised paddling pools of live hagfish, so I should probably start making some calls.

Once the record is released and celebrated with a launch, what does the rest of the year have in store for you?
I ammmmmmmm playing an assortment of gigs! A few down south in July, hopefully another spat in September, including a full band show in Glasgow. You can keep an eye on my socials for info about those!

I’m also really looking forward to going back into a fuzzier, ambient creative zone. Writing and reading. Working my day job at a thrift shop organising drawers of haunted dolls and novelty mugs. Drinking frothy pints with sweeties. Knitting.

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dryas is released on 30 May via Lost Map Records; Faith Eliott launches dryas with support from Firestations, FAB Cricket Club, Leith, 13 Jun, 7.30pm, tickets via howlinfling.com

Follow Faith Eliott on Instagram @faith.eliott

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