In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.       

This time we speak with Her Songs, the global collective of musicians exploring soul and R&B songwriting. 

If you’re not already aware, Her Songs is the product of the conjoined talents of five female-identifying artists. Providing vocals, piano, guitar and production, Dani Murcia is an R&B, pop and soul songwriter from Miami, whose distinctive soundscape is the result of the contrast of an warm, eccentric upbringing by her Columbian parents and a career in the high-speed gloom of New York City. On vocals and guitar, we have Emily C. Browning an indie-soul artist from Christchurch, New Zealand, whose nuanced commentary is influenced by the rule-breaking melodic direction of Emily King, Lianne La Havas and Nai Palm. Another musician on vocals and guitar is The Naked Eye, aka London-based French-English singer-songwriter and guitarist Francesca Hole, who describes her music as having a fusion of jazz, soul, folk and R&B, and writes autobiographical songs about life experiences, relationships and overcoming hardships. TMR alum Marie Dahlstrøm is a Danish artist known for her warm, improvised jazz, soul and R&B songs, and in the band she brings her vocals, piano, percussion and production to the table. Completing this surefire supergroup is London singer-songwriter Emmavie, whose music is an amalgamation of 90s R&B and her love for digital audio experimentation, who provides vocals and production.

Now that you’re fully aware of Her Songs and each of the members, let’s move ahead to the interview. We’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of the new EP, Toronto Vol 1, which features environmentally motivated song ‘I Wonder’ and R&B stonker ‘If We Try’. We discuss these List Picks, the rest of the EP, Her Songs’ origin story, their favourite songs, and what else we should be looking out for.

TMR: How did everyone in Her Songs come together, what are the various links between the members?

We all essentially met on Instagram as fans of each other's music. Dani Murcia (US/Colombia) discovered Marie Dahlstrom’s (Denmark) music on Spotify and they instantly connected and started a conversation about a collaborating. I think imagination and excitement got the best of us, and we began to envision a week long retreat with a couple other artists we admired. What began as a small idea turned into what is now this collective. We proposed this idea to some friends; Dani and Emily Browning (New Zealand) had initially met online and played a show together in NYC, Marie, Emmavie (UK) and The Naked Eye / Francesca (France / UK) all live and have collaborated in London. The planning took place over Skype meetings in accordance to all the different time zones and we had our first ‘camp’ in Los Angeles in August 2018 to create our 1st EP. We had good response, so we decided to join again last summer to collaborate on our 2nd project in Toronto.

TMR: Why is the EP called Toronto Vol 1?

Because we are all based in different parts of the world, part of the Her Songs concept is to choose a new city every year to meet up and write the record. We decided to name the first project after our first location, Los Angeles, because the music created was very much inspired by the city and its energy. Last summer in Toronto we noticed the same type of inspiration come from the new location. The surroundings, the people, the culture, all contributed to the songs made.



TMR: ‘4am Disco’ is clearly one of the most fun tracks on the EP, what was the creation process behind that one like?

It was written on day 2, it was a rainy day and we thought we were going to write a sad song but it ended up being the most upbeat and feel good jam! Marie started playing these funky slash chords on keys, Emmavie layered down a tambourine loop and then Emily used her octave pedal on the guitar and layered some funky bass. Then Francesca / The Naked Eye and Dani started layering some melodies and lyrics, inspired by Pharrell, Jungle, Tom Misch and Emmavie’s dance moves! It all kind of came together very quickly and organically, we had a laugh creating it.

TMR: We recently wrote about the delightful ‘I Wonder’ with its important environmental message, whose idea was it to come up with this unique perspective of looking back from the future?

‘I wonder’ was inspired by various dinner table conversations about Climate Change. Pretty much every night at dinner, no matter where the conversation started, we would always find ourselves sharing concerns and fears about what the future might look like for generations to come. It was a collaborative idea and effort and we decided we didn’t want to write anything overly political or something that sounded preachy or doomed. We focused on exploring the perspective of the youth looking back to our generation, wondering what we had and took for granted.



TMR: Second in the running on the EP and another List Pick here at TMR is ‘If We Try’ and it’s the one we hear most connected to the golden days of RnB. Why does this genre work so well for Her Songs?

‘If We Try’ showcases the mutual love for Soul and 90’s - early 2000 RnB within the group of Her Songs. The song especially highlights Marie Dahlstrom and Emmavie’s collaborative talents in luscious harmonies and RnB vocals, ethereal keys, grooving beats and bass lines.



TMR: Of course, we peeped your EP inspo playlist on Spotify. For fans of Her Songs, what’s the top three songs from the playlist that they need to listen to asap?

We need to create one for Toronto, thanks for the heads up! From the existing ‘Los Angeles’ Spotify playlist, I guess the top 3 would have to be the ones we listened to most during that week!