More about: Vanessa Gimenez

Cast your ear back to the sweltering summer of 2017 and recall the blissful Bristol-based project that went under the alias of Swimming Girls. Their synth-pop wizardry tipped them as ones to keep the firmest eye on immediately. Four years down the line and, though Swimming Girls has disbanded, frontwoman Vanessa Gimenez is going it solo with incandescent creations of her own.

“A lot of people aren’t given a second chance,” Vanessa cogitates. “I was working as a solo artist when I first started making music so it just feels like going back home.”

Her re-introductory single ‘Make It Rain’ fueled Vanessa’s enthusiasm for music again, reigniting a spark that for a moment faintly dimmed. “I always make sure everything I write is true to my story. I sometimes start songs with samples from films: I find that inspires me a lot of the time. Other times I start with a set of chords or an intriguing lyric. I guess the main difference [of being a solo artist] is that anything goes.”

‘Downtime’ seems to be an unknown concept to Vanessa: going straight from Swimming Girls into a nationwide lockdown, she spent the break in normal life preparing for solo superstardom. “The main lessons I learnt in that time were that authenticity is key and that songwriting should always feel effortless and fun” she told us.

Social class is one of many prominent themes that shine through Gimenez’s songwriting, partly drawn from her own upbringing by her Spanish mother and Scottish father in a council flat in Camden. Trauma and self-acceptance also take centre stage, inherently framing Vanessa as an unguarded artist with a fearless approach to sharing damaging experiences in her life.

Valuing the art of escapism in music (her own escapes being The Cranberries and Paramor), Vanessa’s cushiony vocal harmonies in the company of gravelly synth surfaces and summit-high crescendos make for the ultimate departure from reality. In the music of Vanessa Gimenez, you are catapulted into a fantasy realm she can now call all her own.

Soon twisting the key on a vault of material held captive through months of isolation, Vanessa is moments from untethering her most compelling work yet—don’t blink, this won’t be one to miss.

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More about: Vanessa Gimenez