I recently had the chance to catch up with one of my favourite artists in the Scottish music scene, The Ninth Wave!
The second half of your debut album Infancy has been out for a few months now, how has the reaction been to the whole album?
Amazing, we are overwhelmed by all the wonderful feedback we’ve been getting. It’s a scary thing releasing an album, because you never know how it’s going to be received, but we’re super happy with the outcome.
Do you have any new music in the pipeline?
That’s for us to know and you to find out.
You recently performed some of your songs with the Cairn String Quartet, which sounded amazing. What was it like for you to perform with them and would it be something you would do again?
It was an absolute dream, it’s the kind of thing you always daydream about, so when we got the opportunity to add strings to our sound it really opened our eyes to all the ways our music could sound. We’d work with them again in a heartbeat.
You have been announced to play and headline the River Stage at TRNSMT, what was your reaction to getting the news?
Confused, surprised, excited, confused.
Who are you looking forward to seeing at TRNSMT this year?
Little Simz is going to be incredible, and we’re really looking forward to seeing Another Sky again – we’ve loved them ever since we played with them in Brighton a couple of years ago, they just go from strength to strength. We’ve been waiting to catch Gallus and Voodoos for a while as well.
What impact to do you think TRNSMT has had on the Scottish Music Scene?
It’s a really great eye opener for the younger audiences to introduce them to a wider range of local music as well as the bigger pop bands on the line up. This is definitely needed on the Scottish Music Scene to give the smaller bands a chance of getting any recognition.
You recently released the video for Flower into Wounds, what’s the inspiration behind the video?
The title of this song was influenced from the opening line of a chapter in J. G. Ballard’s infamous novel ‘Crash’, in which the protagonist discovers his arousal when his body is harmed in car crashes. As the book progresses, his body becomes more battered and bruised, with him explaining that his body is “flowering into wounds”. I thought this was a beautiful way to describe something so grotesque and it resonated with myself in a different situation. Put plainly, Flower Into Wounds is a song about emotional masochism and finding some sort of enjoyment in having your heart battered and bruised. The video was directed by Amelia’s uncle, Joern Utkilen, who put a surreal interpretation of this into a meditation on suburban living.
What can we expect from the rest of 2020 from you?
Lots and lots and lots
Finally, which Scottish artists are you currently listening to?
Kathryn Joseph, The Twilight Sad, Free Love, Young Fathers, Fiendz YT