Waterbaby has a way of making you feel like you’re in the room with her when you tune into the deeply intuitive melodies and slow-drifting vocals of her meditative songs. The Stockholm-born singer-songwriter has a natural talent for tapping into bittersweet memories of love and heartbreak to inspire rich lyrical breakthroughs imbued with tenderness and melancholy. Bolstered by a choir school background and her family’s own musical lineage (her great-grandfather was a jazz pianist), waterbaby’s creative flow intentionally eschews perfectionism to find something deeply intimate in the process.
Three years on since the release of her 2023 EP Foam, the singer-songwriter returns with her debut album ‘Memory Be A Blade’. Ahead of the release and a European tour this spring, she reflects on her unconventional creative process, the importance of honouring your truth and why she’s “too curious not to try”.
How did the line ‘Memory Be A Blade’ come to be during writing, and did you know you’d found the title in that moment?
I didn’t, although when I did write the line, I was like, “period!” It came quite quickly when I started thinking about the album. It just felt obvious, and it encapsulates the theme of the album. I’m a very sentimental person and I do have a really good memory. I remember everything, and I romanticise. I’ve realised, as I’ve gotten older, that it can be quite stunting. It can almost slow you down a little bit and play tricks on your mind. I used to think that it was a part of my processing, but now, I’m not so sure. It can be a shield from the present; it really can hurt.
The record blends so many sounds such as indie pop, R&B and classical music, but in a harmonious way. How do you bring all those individual elements together?
When I was younger, I was like, “What’s my thing?” I wanted to be able to say, “This sounds like waterbaby.” But then I was like, “I’m gonna be the red thread, and it’s going to make itself known”. I very much walk by faith; I’m not very analytical. It’s like a block of ice, and then whatever melts away is supposed to melt away, and whatever I’m left with is what’s meant to be. I don’t have very clear ideas of what it would sound like, I know more about what I’m looking to feel like.
It’s so impressive that many of the lyrics on this album came from one-take freestyles. Had you experimented with that before, and what kind of freedom does that improvisation process allow you?
I’ve had single instances where I’ve done it. But I did not freestyle, like, a full verse in one take. [Collaborator/producer] Marcus White was like, “sing into the mic” to get lyrics in there. And that was crazy because I just didn’t think it would be anything worth saying. But when you do it for long enough, and because I felt so comfortable, I was allowed to get into a flow of consciousness and just have whatever come out. There were things I hadn’t realised. When I recorded the songs and I would show friends, I would be so nervous because I was like, “We haven’t even spoken about this.” It was really cool, and it feels like an important part of my songwriting journey and process.
We hear you gently clear your throat on both ‘Memory Be A Blade’ and ‘Minnie Too’. Were those moments of trying to rebel against perfectionism?
I want it to feel intimate, and I want to feel close, and you get so much of the room that way. And I have a lot of things I do when I sing that I don’t realise, they’re all subconscious, and Marcus kept that in. Even that to me feels vulnerable, because I don’t know that I’m doing it. To me, it sounds almost like they add something rhythmically. It’s part of the music as well.
You’ve spoken about being a recovering people pleaser, which I imagine must be a really hard thing to navigate in the music industry. What’s changed since you stopped worrying about other people’s opinions?
That dynamic you enforce in relationships isn’t about being nice or kind, it’s about wanting to make yourself as easy to deal with as possible. But I’m not easy to deal with, no matter how hard I try. So it’s just a waste of energy. No one is pleased with me, not even me. It feels very classic to mid-20s [where] it hurts more not being true. It’s been such a clear shift. That was the easiest way before, and now it’s the most painful thing to do, to not be true to myself or trying to make myself smaller to fit into more spaces.
You said that many of the lyrics were initially sparked by a past breakup. How did you find your own voice when it came to writing about experiences of loss and heartache?
It was just writing and writing and writing. I started writing when I was 17, and I went through my first real heartbreak. It was not good, of course. It was very bad. And I had always thought that I couldn’t write. I was like, “I’m a singer, and I’ll be an artist.” And it was very clear that I did not think that I would be able to write my own music. And then I was like, “I got some things to say!” And so I let the pen burn in my notebook. I just keep writing and whatever comes out, comes out, and that’s me.
Your brother ttoh features on two tracks, ‘Beck n Call’ and ‘Clay’. Was music an important part of your relationship growing up?
Absolutely. We have very similar tastes, but my brother put me on so much music. We both had a wide musical palette because music’s a big thing in our family. It was a lot of gospel, R&B, New York hip hop from the ’90s and 2000s, African folk music and indie rock. And my baby brother would play the soccer game PES [Pro Evolution Soccer] and they would have the best soundtracks, and we found so much music throughout the years. Music has definitely been a pillar in our relationship.
Your hometown of Stockholm seems to influence a lot of your music. What’s something about the city you find inspiring?
I just think it’s the prettiest city, it’s dreamy to me. There’s a lot of water here, and there are so many pretty views. I don’t know, it’s just home. And the more the world is falling apart, the more I appreciate it. I feel very lucky.
There’s a really poignant lyric in the track ‘Amiss’ where you say, “If I didn’t try, I’d be amiss’. What would you say is the importance of trying in your life?
It’s very important, and also very scary. The scariest thing about releasing music is that you have to try in front of everyone and you have to be like, “This is me doing my best, and this is what it looks like.” It’s really, really scary, but also what makes it so tender and nice and amazing and magical. Whenever I get scared, I have two mottos: “I walk by faith and not by sight”, and that applies to everything. And “I’m too curious to find out, to not try”. I need to know, no matter how it goes, I need to find out. I let my curiosity take the lead.
‘Memory Be A Blade’ is out March 6 via Sub Pop.
