(Credits: Far Out / Rhiannon Hope)
Don’t get me wrong, I love the excitement of watching a deafening noise band or dancing among a crazed crowd as an electronic outfit thrash their bodies across the stage, but sometimes there’s nothing quite like stumbling upon a quiet talent like Rhiannon Hope, a folk artist who makes you stop what you’re doing and encourages you to just listen.
The Liverpool-born artist, who currently resides and studies in Leeds, only played her first gig in the city in 2024, but now she’s quickly garnering attention with the release of her stunning debut single, ‘B.B’, which teases her first EP, All Things, Rising and Returning. The four tracks (one of which is a flawless live performance recorded at everyone’s favourite brunch/gig/pint spot Hyde Park Book Club for one of their early morning Hangover Sessions) come via James Vardy’s Private Records, having made her Leeds debut supporting his musical project Private Reg.
Since then, Hope has assembled a full band to assist her folk creations, and while her voice alone is enough to leave you deeply impressed, with the accompaniment of several instruments, like violin, acoustic guitar and accordion, she creates a mesmerising palette that feels like it really could cure your hangover. While Hope’s songs feel intimate and inherently personal, she doesn’t think they’d be what they are without the close collaboration of her bandmates. That’s the essence of folk, after all.
“The songs that are on the EP I wrote once I came to uni, and then also that was the same time as forming a band. So those songs that are on the EP haven’t existed without the band, and the band is what makes them sound good, in my opinion. So we did start fresh with it,” she tells me.
Working with other musicians whom Hope completely trusts has afforded her the chance to create an EP that is ever-evolving with each performance. Gearing up for early performances with her band, they’d practice “every single day for like four hours, so we got them done really, really fast.” Yet, “even since then, they’ve changed, and they’ll probably continue to change live,” she admits. Evolution is arguably the most important part of creation; staying static only wears you down. You’ve got to chip away at your craft, which Hope has been doing since she began singing when she was about nine, leading her to pick up the guitar and eventually start writing before she was even a teenager.
“Some of my mum’s favourite songs that I’ve written are the ones that I wrote when I was 12,” she says. “And just imagine a 12-year-old writing a song. What were they? What were they like? What were they about? I don’t know.” Probably crushes, she guesses.
Over the years, Hope has found inspiration from various artists, particularly those who blend a slight sense of strangeness into their sound, like Clarissa Connelly and Aldous Harding, the latter of whom she calls “a consistent inspiration of mine, because she’s weird as hell.” Connelly proved to be a significant influence while Hope was writing her gorgeous track ‘Indulge’, whom she caught at End of the Road festival last year.
Adding, “I love her. I really love her. It sounds kind of like Pagan or Celtic or something like that. And her voice is amazing. She does this one song called ‘Wee Rosebud’, which is off the album [World of Work]. And the beginning, she just does acapella singing, and she did it without a microphone, and it was heaven. It sounded like a siren or something.”
“Some of my mum’s favourite songs that I’ve written are the ones that I wrote when I was 12.”
Rhiannon Hope
Meanwhile, artists like Sibylle Baier, Nico, The Velvet Underground, Laura Marling, and Naima Bock have left a sonic impression on Hope, although a direct inspiration for the EP actually came from a non-musical source, Laozi’s classic text Tao Te Ching: “I’m not a Buddhist or anything. I just wanted to read it because I like the idea of it. So, the name All Things, Rising and Returning loosely comes from something I read.”
The EP is a truly stunning collection of tracks that invites listeners into a landscape that feels both otherworldly and grounded in a sense of raw emotion. With the titular track, Hope’s voice becomes a kaleidoscope of sound, swirling across her accordion, which remains rather stoic and poised in comparison. All Things, Rising and Returning is a timeless record, its year of origin obscured by influences dating back to the days of traditional folk – you might’ve stumbled across an 18th-century villager singing one of these tracks in a field – to more modern folk artists like Jessica Pratt, the kind of artist you can imagine Hope one day opening for.
What drew Hope to folk specifically? It’s not a genre that swathes of 21-year-olds are leaping towards at the moment – at least not with the level of precision that Hope uses – but perhaps more than ever we need slices of such contemplative music which leaves us searching for words. Folk music isn’t something Hope consciously chooses to make, however, explaining that “from my perspective, you don’t really think about that. You just write. I like being honest.” For Hope, “it’s just whatever happens” when she picks up the pen.
With the release of Hope’s EP on September 25th coinciding nicely with the turning of the seasons, All Things, Rising and Returning couldn’t be a more perfect soundtrack.
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