Josephine Illingworth - Old Holy Feeling (Self Relese) [Alt-Folk]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 3 minutes ago
- 2 min read
I think it's fair to say that Josephine Illingworth is a character. She's a Europe exploring, countryside fascinated, London based multi-media artist artist with a fondness for twisting folk music into new shapes; her creations often starting innocently enough before spiralling off into other dimensions, confounding expectations and giving her songs all sorts of refreshing twists that set her apart from her peers. It's probably the least we could expect from someone into long distance hiking in all seasons - despite the climatic challenges of the British weather and daring enough to lay out her sleeping bag on pews in dusty old church after a long day's march, rather than continually staring at a small screen whilst drinking overpriced lattes in soulless coffee chains.
The switched off time alone certainly allows for some original thinking, and her songs gamely attempt to make sense of her natural, ecclesiastic and intense urban experiences, aided by field recordings captured along the way, the aforementioned alt-folk shapes and her variously intimate and soaring vocal range.
After a dalliance with a major label last year, which put her on moer maps and broke her over seven figure streaming numbers for the first time, she's back - probably wisely for such a maverick, to self-releasing with "Old Holy Feeling", and it's an enticing glimpse into her forthcoming EP schedule for May that took its inspiration from her wanderings along the Golden Valley Pilgrimage in the Welsh borders.
Kicking off in fragile folk fashion, Illingworth caresses her guitar to elevate the intimate vocal lines that beckon you closer. Attention secured the drums soon arrive to urge the voice onward and upward as a ghostly choral line haunts the swiftly arriving effected guitar and synths that blow in from the north, gradually increasing in intensity until vocal loops are also swept up into the electroacoustic maelstrom, and then, all of a sudden, it's over - the winds vanish, leaving our dishevelled conductor alone again with her guitar, thoughts and a lingering ambient drone, trying to join the dots between worlds and make sense of it all. Bring on the EP.
Playlist Companion
Find Illingworth in the Slow Alt-Pop Playlist.