Channelling the brooding atmospherics of Radiohead and The xx, but with a little more bite and political charge, Another Sky’s music is dark, cinematic and richly textured. Layering ambient guitars with penetrating bass lines and anxious beats, there is a thrillingly haunting quality to it.
When you listen to Another Sky, it’s probably Catrin Vincent’s voice that’ll catch your attention first. It is a weapon – peculiar, androgynous, lurching and defiant – that she wields to beautiful, evocative effect. Catrin is delighted that people find it so strange. “A lot of people think I’m a man,” she laughs. “I think people are embarrassed when they initially think it’s one of the guys singing, but I love it. It’s like I’ve got two voices – there’s this soft, whispery voice that can go really high, and then suddenly there’s this angry chest voice. Somewhere along the way, I drew two voices together.”
Politics is important to Catrin in her daily life, and she doesn’t see why it shouldn’t infiltrate the music too. ‘Chillers’, a woozy, sarcastic pop song, lambasts those in privileged positions who choose to do nothing – “Why worry ‘bout the weather or nuclear weapons when you can eat for free on a black card at Nandos?” – while Brave Face is a tribute to female strength in the face of abuse. Following in the footsteps of her heroes – Margaret Atwood, Frida Kahlo, Kate Tempest, and her mother, who’s worked as a social worker and counsellor – Catrin wants to use her art to make a difference in the world.
“I just don’t like apathy,” she says simply. “I don’t like the idea that artists shouldn’t talk about politics – politics bleeds into everyone’s lives. I don’t see why you can’t be an activist and an artist. Of course you can change things. The world is what we make of it.”
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