More about: Greta IsaacClose Reading

Honouring the poetry that goes into songwriting, Close Reading is a series of intimate conversations about all the books, films and thoughts behind some of your favourite songs. Diving into the lyrics and picking apart the lines that make you want to sing along a little louder, Lucy Harbron is sitting down with some of the most exciting songwriters around to hold a magnifying glass up to the lyrical form.

Greta Isaac is a creative force. Born into a family of musicians back in Wales, and going ahead to spread her artistic wings into film and creative directing as well as songwriting, she’s not a fan of limits. Solid in her vision and forever evolving in her sound, Greta’s latest releases speak to an era with a fresh confidence in her artistic eye.

Having worked with some of her closest friends and biggest names in ground-roots music at the moment including Orla Gartland and Dodie, Greta is constantly going above and beyond what anyone would expect of her. Talking about clowns, weird films and camera rolls, Greta and Lucy dove into her moodboard.

Even with your earliest releases, everything seems to come along with visuals and art. When did music start to merge with this other side of your creativity?

I’ve always been in music – I grew up in a musical family so music was always playing, my dad has a studio so there would always be strangers coming in and out to make music and it was so encouraged for my siblings to sing together. It was always part of our family dynamic and our identity, we are musicians. So even though they’re both creative things, it was still a bit of a shock like ‘oh why is Gret doing that?’ when I got into other things.

My first boyfriend introduced me to how elaborate the world of film is and how it can be a vehicle for all these different forms to come together and make something amazing. Then it wasn’t until I started hanging out with some friends that were more interested in design and illustration that I really started to appreciate the art world and use it as something that can go hand-in-hand with my music rather than having to be a completely different venture. Now I see music as a vehicle to fulfil all those passions of mine, sometimes I’d even say music comes secondary to those things.

What were some of the films that really opened your eyes to it all?

I grew up watching like Back to The Future and Jaws and all these big, athletic films. When I started dating that boyfriend it was more about more arthouse leaning stuff, things that felt more ambiguous and challenging to watch. The main thing I took from watching films with him was German expressionism and that era of films. I was a big Tim Burton fan and to see where he got his influences was crazy to me.

When you’re writing music now, how early in the process do visuals pop into your head? Or is it ever the opposite way round with ideas for videos or artwork coming first?

Increasingly more now I think more visually than sonically. I always think about my project, and see it as a moodboard or a mind map to keep me thinking about what things are a part of that. When I’m writing I’ll think about what Greta Isaac would say about this topic, rather than Gret who you’re talking to right now, or what would the project lean into, visually or lyrically or even odd sounds in a song. It all helps me think beyond what I would say day-to-day, but instead what the artist would say - and having visual aids really prompts those thoughts.

I’d love to do an album where I do all the visuals first and then write songs as if it was a pitch session, like what would this artist or this visual sing about.

Practicalities-wise, do you have big scrapbooks or moodboards? How do you collect all your inspo?

It’s more digital stuff that I collect but I’m always looking for stuff that connects to the project. Even if I’m out on a walk I’ll take a video of things I see, even if it’s like dead seaweed or tangled up thread, if it feels relevant but I don’t know why yet, I’ll capture it. I’m always documenting stuff; my camera role is full of shit. But it’s really helped me let my intuition guide me a bit more about what a project should be.

I also work really closely with one of my best friends, Suzie Walsh, who is such a mind behind this with me. She’s so resourceful and constantly has a magnifying glass to the most mundane things, even if it’s like a chip in some old paint, she’ll be like ‘omg it should be in the Tate’. Even without her knowing, she’s encouraged me to look for beauty in ordinary things, and that you can always take it and change it up to create something more beautiful.

I know you looked after the visuals for Orla Gartland’s album, how does the process change when you’re creative directing for someone else?

It’s mainly just about listening to the songs and coming up with your own interpretations and where you see yourself in it. But also, me and Orla sat down so many times talking about the visual language she wanted to have [on Woman On The Internet], and we talked about each other’s songs and what they all meant in a level of detail that we’d never share or showcase publicly. But knowing that between us really helped put in some easter eggs and bring some ambiguity to the visual world. Mostly it’s all about ego-detachment, for that project it was all about was Orla wanted and that’s a really interesting thing to keep practicing as an artist.

Whether it’s for your project or someone else’s, are there any references that you fell in love with years ago but you find yourself constantly coming back to?

That’s such a fun question because I feel like at the minute I’m constantly renewing and constantly looking for new things. I’m a bit of a magpie in that way, constantly looking for new things to be inspired by. But German expressionism and 1940s circus culture and clown-like, theatrical behaviours always pop up. Camp-leaning worlds inspire me all the time and I’ve always had a fascination with the pushed aside people in life who decide to go off course, the visual world that is paired with that is always so rich and feels like there’s blood pumping through it.

Do your references change when you go back home to Wales? I imagine it all becomes more insular?

1000%. Growing up in Wales and in the family I grew up in, I’m obviously eternally grateful to have had music readily available to me, but I feel like it steered the songs I wrote when I was young. Now there’s a point in my life where the visual language I’m creating has really helped me not feel so attached to traditional songwriting. A song I wrote recently has no chords or melody, it’s just like shouting over a baseline. And I know to some like EDM producers that would be pretty normal, but to me it was so freeing, that had never been an option for me in my head. 

‘How Are You Not Freaking Out’, both lyrically and sonically, feels stuck between those two places – home and the place you’re in now. I really relate to that whole idea of looking back at a small hometown while you’re off struggling away in a city…

I wanted that song to feel stuck in an in-between, and I think sonically it does that as well as it dips into the classic songwriter structure that I grew up on and then pushes against that in the production. Lyrically there were so many things in there that feel kind of scatty which I liked, so we definitely wanted it to feel like ‘oh god, the version of me in the suburbs? What a weirdo!’ Like, ‘come on there are battles to fight and there is art to make!’ It was really interesting to think like why don’t we allow ourselves a quiet life? Why is that not allowed for us?

When it comes to writing something like that that’s pretty vulnerable, or when you’ve thought about something so deeply you’ve dug yourself into a hole, I imagine working with friends like Orla and around that creative circle must be so helpful

Oh my god for sure. I think that’s why I’m finding it increasingly difficult to write on my own, it feels like my brain is a bit of a pressure cooker or a big filled up balloon so working with Orla, and Matt Zara, and my partner Martin Luke Brown helps poke a little hole in it to take the necessary bits out to write a song. But having someone that you trust and who knows you and your project so deeply feels necessary and important for me.

I guess when you look back through artistic history at The Bloomsbury Group or the Beats and all these big artistic friendship circles, there’s obviously such a power in that closeness where you barely even need to express yourself to collaborate…

There’s such a safety there. With lyrics I just constantly need to be saying anything to get the lyrics out and generally figuring it out by talking, and there need to be such a trust there because god, the shit that comes out of my mouth before I get to the song is awful. You need to have someone there to be like ‘I am actually good aren’t it…?’

From the vulnerability of that song, ‘Payri$e’ is such a switch up. What was that process like?

I wrote it with Martin and it was funny writing that song with someone you’re so in love with and so deeply chill and happy with. But I think actually that created the perfect space to allow us to be playful in the lyrics and go with it, because it didn’t feel true at any point. Or maybe those moments have felt true in arguments, but writing it with someone you trust so much gave us so much space to be playful.

But I always remember being so charged when I was in my teens by dance tunes and big pop tunes that felt really twisted and crunchy. They felt like someone itching my brain in the best way so I always wanted to do a song that was both very poppy and catchy but also have dance influences. And lyrically, more and more I feel like I’m trojan horsing these big feelings and hiding these funny little left-leaning lyrics in big pop songs. It feels good.

Greta Isaac Recommends

To Watch – The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

It’s an old German expressionism film. Its silent and really really long and hard to watch, but even if you just see snippets of it, it’s so visually engaging and cool.

To Read – How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera

It’s more of a self-help book. She’s got an Instagram account called The Holistic Psychologist and every post I look at it as if she’s looking into my soul.

'Payri$e' arrives tomorrow via Made Records.

Issue Three of the Gigwise Print magazine is preselling now! Order here.

More about: Greta IsaacClose Reading