News Laura Welsh: ‘It’s Important To Trust Your Own Instinct’

To a vast majority, Laura Welsh’s emergence at the very beginning of 2013 looked like a bolt out of the blue. ‘Unravel’ announced itself as a gorgeous, soulful debut single, recorded with producer du jour Dev Hynes, of all people. Yet in many senses it’d been a long time coming.

This single was one of many crucially penned tracks put together in a year when a vaguely well-established name shut herself off from just about everything.

A good couple of years before speaking to Laura in a cosy London cafe, she’s putting a halt to playing gigs under the names Laura and The Tears and Hey Laura. She shuns the spotlight, opinions, everything. A songwriter with experience to her name, with momentum to boot, she takes a risk. ‘That year was important, to step away from everything and remove myself,’ she says.



The 12 months out consisted of isolationism, looking after number one. ‘I was writing songs for my taste. It was more about feel. I didn’t think too much.’ She then sought out producers, the right people who could fledge out these tracks into something resembling an album. ‘With the producers, it’s about who you get on with, who you click with,’ she says. Hynes and Robin Hannibal of Rhye hooked up with Welsh in LA, where tons of ideas - some of which Laura self-professes to have hurriedly recorded on her phone, on the tube - came into being.

These songs aren’t from one place, an overwhelming sorry state, despite the time alone. Love crops up, but as do other vital ideas. A forthcoming debut album ‘has different shades and textures’ to it, where odd, underlying feelings crop up almost sub-consciously. ‘I find that it’s difficult to control your emotions - it’s easier to express these things in songs rather than talking about it.’ In ‘Unravel’, these emotions, aptly, come undone. Fear, regret, what have you. Laura has a knack for expressing everything in finite, cutting detail. The same goes for her perspective on starting afresh.

‘There are always lots of opinions in music. It’s really important to trust your own instinct,’ she declares, well aware that things have turned a page. Confidence isn’t so much emerging as spilling out from all sides. 12 months is nothing in the grand scheme of things. But Welsh is now at the stage where taking a brief hiatus today would, thankfully, be frankly ridiculous.



Laura Welsh’s ‘Cold Front’ EP is out on 15th July via Polydor.

Taken from the July 2013 issue of DIY, available now. For more details click here.

Laura Welsh launches her ‘Cold Front’ single at London’s Africa Centre, 15th July.