The Lancastrian singer-songwriter discusses her much-needed return to Blackburn and why Severely Love, Go Dwelling, is her most emotionally sincere file but.
Charlotte OC’s (Charlotte O’Connor) newest EP, Severely Love, Go Dwelling, doesn’t pull its punches. The title alone seems like a stern warning, and because the singer-songwriter tells, that’s precisely the purpose.
“It was mainly the voice in my head that I used to be ignoring.” she mentioned.
“I used to be just being an absolute nutter in London however continuously considering that I wanted to remain there as a result of it was for my music. However in actuality, it couldn’t have been more of a worse place for me to be. I used to be just deteriorating slowly. So actually, [Seriously Love, Go Home] is just about actually listening to your intestine.”
The phrase, she goes on to clarify, carries a “maternal” power too, like one other model of herself stepping in to take care of her.
“I think it was type of me just taking care of myself, however selecting to not.” she mirrored.
“Once I lastly did, I realised the impact of me really going residence, and I used to be making an attempt to let myself know that this was the most effective thing for me.”
That theme of self-acceptance runs via our total dialog. Charlotte laughs as she remembers a fan not too long ago digging up one of her earliest songs, written when she was sixteen and uploaded to MySpace.
“[The fan] was like, ‘Are you the woman who sang ‘Oscar’?’ and was asking if it was on Spotify and I mentioned ‘No, it’s not, I don’t even have it’ and she or he was like ‘I’ve bought it right here – do you need to hear it?’ So she despatched it to me.”
The unearthed recording gave her flashbacks to how she sounded as a younger artist. “I nonetheless sound like me just a little bit, however I am very American,” she provides.
“I am additionally very much making an attempt to be Kate Nash on the identical time. I am making an attempt to be so many alternative individuals. And I think that is just one thing that I’ve realised now, is that I am very much myself now. There’s more Northern in my voice now than ever when I am performing.”
Not solely has Charlotte embraced her background inside her sound, but in addition in the visible storytelling round Severely Love, Go Dwelling. The EP cowl options the arms of her mom, a hairdresser, washing Charlotte’s hair.
“I’ve usually been not that open with the place I am from or tried to be fairly elusive as a result of I assumed that no person must know every little thing, that it ought to just be in regards to the music,” she admits. “And in actuality, that is not really who I’m as an individual. I am very open, and I owe Blackburn loads. I owe my mum loads.”
Her vulnerability inside her music isn’t performative; it’s all the time been part of the songwriter’s life, she explains.
“I used to get shouted at for all the time writing very miserable songs when I used to be youthful, I imply, I grew up with Leonard Cohen. That is been the blueprint of my childhood. I’ve additionally struggled with being very very very emotional, and as a teen, that was actually laborious. My feelings would all the time get the higher of me.”
Her music is usually more than just an outlet for the Blackburn artist; it may possibly virtually be like remedy.
Charlotte’s connection to her late father, initially from Eire, is evident. She displays on when she skilled dire homesickness in childhood, the place she traced her finger across the bricks of her home as a method to “keep in mind” the form of it earlier than leaving for a ‘Mother and father Get Misplaced’ camp. Her father later admitted that he used to do the identical gesture as a baby.
After revisiting this reminiscence in a dialogue with a colleague, Charlotte realised how much of an influence the current promoting of her household residence had on her, and that one of the best ways for her to course of it was via her songwriting.
“After which from there these lyrics just fell out of me, it’s known as ‘Outlines’ and it is actually one of my most favorite songs I’ve ever written.”
“From the second I bought to that session, which was at noon, I did not depart until 2:00 in the morning.” Her eyes glared broadly.
“I wasn’t crying for less than one of these hours. The final time I cried like that was in remedy. I felt prefer it was a purge. It was nuts. The entire session that I had was just genuinely a bit life-changing. It was stunning.”
Whether or not writing alone or with trusted collaborators like Dimitri Tikovoi on the EP’s monitor ‘Romeo’, or ‘Cider and Black’ with Black Honey’s Izzy Phillips, Charlotte OC has lastly come residence – musically, emotionally and actually. It appears that evidently is exactly what she lays out with Severely Love, Go Dwelling; the sound of an artist lastly listening to her personal voice.
•Severely Love, Go Dwelling is out now
