The playlist is now up to date and if you’ll indulge me, I’m going to close it with a story of an artist reinvention/renewal that’s a bit more pointed than what has gone before. It seems like a dark story but with a hopeful outcome.
Some of you may be familiar with the singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore who is pretty well known in folk circles. She released her first album at age 17 and by her third album Rules For Jokers she was getting significant mainstream attention.
At age 16 she did a work experience placement at Fairport Convention’s studios, where she met the musician/producer Nigel Stonier who was 23 years her senior. Stonier became her musical mentor/partner and they entered into a relationship whereby they ultimately married. Together they worked on something like 18 of her albums and had two children together. The first addition to the playlist is “You’re The Radio”, a track from her 2010 well received pop folk album Murphy’s Heart and is indicative of her then output. She continued to release albums in this vein until 2019.
Then, in 2021 she issued two albums simultaneously. The first, “The Emancipation of Eva Grey”, was released as the artist Theo Gilmore and somewhat strangely the second was eponymously titled under a new identify of ‘Afterlight’. So far, so odd; but things were about to get a bit dark.
The Emancipation of Eva Grey appeared to be an atypical album of 1930’s style jazz tracks about love, with Noel Cowardesque lyrics. Tracks such as “Where You Are Is Where I Am” seemed to be a happy tale of togetherness; however, it transpired the songs were laced with a grim irony. Because the accompanying 'Afterlight' album clearly and brutally tells a story of a relationship based on coercive control that leaves someone bereft of their own identity. The opening track is spoken word and sets the tone, it’s called Of All The Violence I Have Known, I haven’t added it to the playlist but here’s the video for anyone interested.
It became apparent, through the content and press releases, that the two albums were designed to not only draw a line under her previous body of work but also that part of her life and apparent identity. Throughout her ‘first’ career she was projected as a wise cracking, tough and sardonic streetwise type but this was a façade. Upon the release of Afterlight, she described herself as slightly broken, muddled, fragile and scared but that was much better because it was the first time as an adult she had her own sense of who she was.
Fast forward to 2023 and she released a new album not only as Theo Gilmore but tellingly the first ever, after 20 albums, that was eponymously named. She wrote, played and produced pretty much everything. The opener is another spoken word track called Nice Normal Woman, the final track on the playlist. As the album progresses you can hear many elements of the ‘old’ Gilmore (and she has made a point of never disowning those old records because for better and worse they were who she was) but musically it is clear the ‘real’ Thea Gilmore has at least some different sensibilities.
Having had her life ‘managed’ from the age of 16, she has talked very openly and frankly about the challenges of having to now find her own identity both as an artist and a person despite the fact she is a forty something woman with two children and a huge back catalogue behind her. The closing track of the 2023 album is yet another spoken word track, but one of hope as she writes her own prescription for how she and all of us can move forward.
So I’ve been very cheeky and added three tracks to the playlist:
- The first an upbeat folk pop track suggesting that all is well with the world.
- The second a seemingly fluffy 1930’s style diversion that actually signified the unravelling of everything that it turns out really wasn’t well with the world after all. Listen to the lyrics with the knowledge of what was going on and they take on a completely different meaning.
- The third a defiant electronica backed monologue from someone moving on and taking control of their life.
Three very different tracks that actually tell a condensed story of a human life (to date).
