#balderdasch

This segment features artists who have submitted their tracks/videos to She Makes Music. If you would like to be featured here then please send an e-mail to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!

Balderdasch

Balderdasch is the adopted moniker of London based Irish artist, Jessica Matthews. Balderdasch’s music is incredibly driven by the lyrics, which stems from her love of folk music as a child. However, now you’re as likely to find her listening to Denzel Curry as you are to Joni Mitchell. She has spent the last few years experimenting with her sound before releasing any material but is finally set to release a slew of music, with her most recent efforts being co produced and mixed by innovative saxophonist and composer Pete Wareham of Melt yourself down. New single ‘Strange Weather in Tokyo’ is ultimately a song about “unconventional” relationships and unexpected feelings. It’s about coming to terms with being queer in a small town and the often initial feeling for many that your attractions are both wrong and right at the same time. “The song came to fruition through an amalgamation of my personal life and books and tv shows I was inspired by at the time,” explains Jessica. “The title is the same as a book I was reading by Hiromi Kawakami which is essentially a love story between a woman and her old professor. I was also watching killing eve at the time and the dynamic between the two main characters with the queer tension and the danger element in their relationship greatly inspired the chorus. This song was the first out of many brought to my co-producer Pete Wareham (Melt Yourself Down) for this project and so it felt right to release it as the first single under Balderdasch.” Listen below.

Balderdasch · Strange Weather in Tokyo

SERENA

Growing up in Italy, SERENA embraced music at a very young age, slowly building on her songwriting qualities. After a hiatus in the US, she later moved to the UK, settling down in London, to polish her craft at the prestigious British Institute for Modern Music. inspired by the city’s vibrant and multicultural music scene, she took it upon herself to produce her own material, expanding her   compositional knowledge from lyrics and chords to samples and synths. ‘Streetlights’ is the final track from SERENA’s debut EP Welcome to Wasteland. The song is a celebration of the coveted, yet hard to achieve self love. Between samples from the London Underground, frank lyrics à la Lorde, incessant drums beats like Portishead, this ballad narrates the journey home from a night out in the city among broken expectations and self realisation.SERENA says: “I’d like to awake in the audience a sense of desired loneliness, acceptance of ourselves and our emotions without any judgement. It’s a journey home, where home is a place or a state of mind where we accept and love ourselves, and no one else”. Listen below.

xs

xs’ debut album Good Girls Don’t Speak Their Minds is brutally honest and emotionally raw. The album, produced by Hangi Tavakoli, consists of 11 tracks, with each track letting you in on a part of xs' life, adding them together provides a full picture of who she is. “All of them are very personal and close to my heart because they are inspired by my real experiences,” xs described. xs is originally from Malaysia and is signed to Flipside Productions, based in Singapore. She is praised for her catchy hooks and narrative lyricism that takes inspiration from her personal stories. xs also uses her platform to advocate for female empowerment and celebrating who you are. Unlike xs’ other tracks, ‘Find Somebody’ is her most vulnerable song of the album where she pours her heart about the feeling of loneliness. ​It is raw and honest when she shares her desire to search for someone to spend time with. Listen below.

Incendiary Sweet

Victoria of Incendiary Sweet is not your typical emerging indie rock artist releasing a debut single. She is a multi-instrumentalist wheelchair user and an adaptive surfing champion. After a snowboarding accident left her partially paralyzed, she returned to skiing, surfing and playing music. Before the pandemic, she had been reluctant to pursue serious live performance or recording due to her disability. She has played shows in the past with members of the bands Hey Ocean and Parlour Steps, but a frontwoman singer-songwriter in a wheelchair is ground-breaking. “You rarely see wheelchair users centre stage and the lack of visibility made me afraid that I would be judged as a token or a novelty” explained Victoria. Since Covid, her mindset has changed. She's now determined to showcase, record and perform regardless of prior stereotypes. Her single ‘Disaffected Scrolling Thru’ was recorded with producer Winston Hauschild at Little Island Studios and mastered by Palace Studios.  Victoria wrote the song after discussion with a friend about getting trapped on the treadmill of "never enough money, never enough validation despite the hollow nature of the pursuit. So many of us don't love the social media game, but we all live within the social constraints of our generation and this culture of scarcity. More personally, the song's about managing the tensions of pursuing self-expansion while staying true to oneself." Her music is a mix of Metric meets Jack Johnson with a touch of Dave Grohl. The kind of songs you’d hear around a beach campfire at dusk. Her songs reflect all these influences as well as her work in healthcare and her commitment to adaptive surfing. Incendiary Sweet is eager to perform live. She intends to show the world that disability doesn’t have to be barrier, and in music, that how you sound is still more important than how you look. “I want the music to stand on its own, and I would love being in a chair to be a non-issue. I feel like this is just the beginning.” Listen to ‘Disaffected Scrolling Thru’ below.

Incendiary Sweet · Disaffected Scrolling Thru

Kamsi

Kamsi is a 19-year-old Nigerian-American artist from Chicago, currently a student at Princeton University. Attending boarding school in New England, Kamsi started her journey in music by performing during open mic nights and joining acapella groups. Subsequently, she started posting covers on Instagram and YouTube, quickly gaining a following. Her angelic voice, beautiful lyrics, and striking style have captivated many already, and she will only continue to grow in her talents. Her unique, soulful voice and R&B flare make her one to watch. “With my new song ‘Proof’, I really wanted to go to a vulnerable place and write about unrequited love because that’s something that a lot of people can relate to,” she says. “But what really inspired my honesty on that track were the videos that I was seeing on TikTok of young girls of color saying how they felt overlooked and under-appreciated in the dating scene and in the media. As a woman of color, I definitely related to their experiences as well. Their candor gave me the push that I needed to really be honest in the lyrics I wrote.” Listen below.

KAMSI · Proof

Sophie Janna

Sophie Janna fell in love with traditional folk music in Edinburgh and took that love back with her to hometown Amsterdam. Old songs were more soothing to her than her own songs ever could be; you can lose yourself in someone else’s story. But now Sophie is finally releasing some of her own songs, in hopes that other people might find comfort in them too. As a songwriter she is very much inspired by the Scottish and Irish folk traditions, as well as by contemporary artists like The Weather Station, Joan Shelley and Sylvan Esso. Her new single ‘Nightfall’, the second song from her EP Wide World is out now. Janna wrote ‘Nightfall’ when she was staying in Austin rehearsing for a tour. The song is about the vulnerability you feel when you go on tour together: you may hardly know each other, but suddenly you’re stuck in the car together for hours, you sleep in the same room, you’re exposed to each other’s uncertainties, worries and nerves, night after night on a different stage with hopefully enough people to pay for your gas for the next concert. Sophie says: "I think with this song I was trying to tell my tour partner that he was safe with me; or perhaps I was trying to tell myselft hat I'd be safe with him." The production was made in collaboration with Hannah Jacobs and Nicholas O’Brien of Upcycled Sounds, an Italian/British producer duo who are also responsible for the drums, synth and guitars. Joseph O'Keefe (India Electric Co.) played the violin part. Listen below.