| INTRODUCING… WINNIE RAEDER SHARES NEW SINGLE + UK LIVE DATES’ THE END OF ME‘ IS STREAMING NOW WATCH ACCOMPANYING VISUALS – THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN AUDIO/VISUAL PROJECT TO BE UNVEILED THROUGHOUT THE SPRING  Winnie Raeder is very pleased to share her first new music of the year, and the opening instalment of an extensive audio and visual project to be unveiled throughout the Spring. |
| The End Of Me is streaming now, accompanied by visuals by the director and choreographer Rianne White. Watch/listen here Denmark born Raeder never set out to become an artist. Growing up in Aabenraa, a small fjord-side town in Southern Denmark, the songs she wrote as a teenager were hidden, private things, their darkness at complete odds with the extroverted joker she presented by day. But the quips were only surface level, and the real her was found in what she was writing in her lyrics. Winnie dreamt of leaving for Copenhagen, and perhaps even further afield. “It felt like there was nobody like me in Aabenraa. Nobody knew anybody who was gay, and back then you didn’t really see it on TV either. When I finished school, I started working as a waitress to make some money, and my goal was to leave. I was ready to feel a sense of belonging.” She planned to get away and play sports, whilst the songs she wrote remained buried. “I was basically Zac Efron’s character Troy, in High School Musical.” In Winnie’s teens, a serious knee injury put pay to her plans to head to ‘efterskole’ (a year-long residential school in Denmark) to pursue her passion of football. She remained hesitant to share her music. “Music was the one place where I felt like I wasn’t trying to be someone, and I wanted to keep it sacred”. Though she eventually decided to focus on songwriting at nineteen, she uprooted to an entirely new country to do so, tempted by the prospect of total anonymity, and a different language to express herself in. Still, Raeder ended up quitting her course shortly after moving to London – the regimented nature of approaching music academically felt too stifling. Instead, she wound up working as a barista in the city whilst figuring out what to do next. It’s here, in a tiny Putney coffee shop, that Raeder got to know two of the owner’s friends, who were coincidentally involved in the music industry. After asking for some advice on cracking the world of songwriting for other artists, Raeder broke one of her own watertight rules and played her own music to another person for the very first time. Asked if she would ever consider performing them, she immediately refused. “I remember being on the bus on the way back, and thinking: that’s dumb! Obviously that won’t happen!” she recalls. Right before parting ways, however, a question stuck in her mind. “They asked me if I would really give my songs away to somebody else,” she says. “I knew the answer was no.” For months, Raeder mulled over this impulse. “I turned a corner and realised I was scared,” she says. “Every day since then, I tell myself I can do it. I can feel I’m letting go.” Raeder no longer worries about the nature of the “weighted and heavy” topics she’s commonly drawn to. Inspired by the eviscerating candour of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Jeff Buckley, she began writing songs that dug deep into the dark, messy guts that she searches out as a listener – flecked with electric pulses of synthesised grandeur that recall James Blake and Bon Iver. “I like music to take me to a place where I have to confront shit,” she says. “You almost want to be scared, or challenged, with something that makes you stop. Shake me, do something!” she exclaims. “That’s an element I really try to keep in my own work.” This new project was written in Winnie’s riverside studio in Copenhagen, and recorded in Brixton with co-producer Beni Giles (Lianne La Havas, Kawala) – Raeder explores the dizzying sensation of letting go completely: plunging into the unknown, thrashing waters of love and loss without putting up a fight. ‘The End Of Me’ is a love song, soaring up into a cacophony of muffled brass, it’s also rooted in the fear of what complete infatuation can mean. The lyrics, which detail a contented figure dancing in their own world, are directly pulled from Raeder’s own life. “All of this actually happened when I was first dating my now-girlfriend,” she says. “She put on a record, and was in her own world, listening to this song she loved. I thought, fuck me, this person is beautiful. I felt like “you’ll be the end of me” was quite a beautiful and desperate way of saying there’s a lot at stake now.” Rather than introduce herself with a standalone EP, Winnie’s new recordings are accompanied by a visual counterpart that will form one longform filmic piece upon release. Winnie: “I wanted to create a visual world for these songs to exist in, and at the same time create a world that could exist on its own. It was important to me that the film would both tell a story but at the same time allow for interpretation. I think we live in a time where everything is moving so fast, everything is so easily accessible and interchangeable that we rarely invest a lot of time into one thing. If it’s doesn’t grab out attention right from the start, we skip it and move on. I think that’s quite scary. There’s a lot of beauty lost in that. I wanted to intentionally create a world where we’d use long shots, still moments and simplicity. Moments that demands your attention. That’s a place I find really interesting and exciting, I think there are many feelings to be found there, in the stillness. “I tend to speak in feelings and shapes and textures when trying to communicate creative ideas and thoughts. The director, Rianne White, knew exactly how to translate that into film, and she understood exactly what I was trying to say. She functioned almost as a translator for my thoughts, and together we created this real tangible universe that prior to that just existed in my mind. It was so inspiring to work with her. I remember being on set and just getting really emotional. I am just very proud of what we’ve created.” Winnie will support Canadian musician Leif Vollebekk across the UK in April and May, preceded by two headline dates at The Troubadour in London. Winnie Raeder Live:20th April– The Troubadour, London21st April – The Troubadour, London26th April – Whelans, Dublin (w/ Leif Vollebekk)28th April – King Tuts, Glasgow (w/ Leif Vollebekk)29th April – Cluny, Newcastle (w/ Leif Vollebekk)30th April – Deaf Institute, Manchester (w/ Leif Vollebekk)1st May – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (w/ Leif Vollebekk)3rd May – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham (w/ Leif Vollebekk)5th May – Brixton Electric, London (w/ Leif Vollebekk)6th May – Thekla, Bristol (w/ Leif Vollebekk)7th May – Chalk, Brighton (w/ Leif Vollebekk) |