There’s a myriad of things wrong with the state of the music industry today, but credit where it’s due, as in a sense music has never been more accessible. A laptop can turn any bedroom, in any quiet little neighbourhood, into a recording studio. A song on the internet could reach and resonate with people in the most forgotten far flung corners of the world. Making music, like all art, is an act of expression. Telling your story and letting your voice be heard. In another time, a voice like Rosie H Sullivan’s might never have been heard outside of a few small rooms in the Outer Hebrides. Her story, her perspective, the artistic lens through which she sees the world, might have been lost to the wider world. Yet we live in a time when the intimacy of those cosy rooms can be shared with the masses, where the isolated islands she calls home can welcome a wealth of new visitors simply by closing their eyes and being swept away by her words.

The Scottish singer/songwriter’s new EP In My Nature plays like a journey of self-discovery. The bittersweet ‘Wild Flowers and Cobblestones’ describes the daunting process of trading rugged shorelines for the bustling city streets of Edinburgh and learning to cope with the changes. ‘Only A Woman’ channels the feeling of being lost and out of place in strange surroundings into a wider feminist anthem about trying to fit societal expectations of body image. Her voice here balances fragility and venom in a way that reminds me of Belwood favourite Ailbhe Reddy. The dreamy elegance of ‘Fragments‘ is a wistful love letter to her home on the Isle of Lewis, the jaunty brass-inflected folk pop bop ‘Chapters‘ recalls Feist’s ‘1234’ and projects an upbeat and optimistic view of the new possibilities that lay at her feet, while the elegant featherlight arrangement of ‘Timeless‘ is home to a spoken word recording of the late Scottish adventurer and family friend Hamish Gow. 

Rosie’s music paints a dreamy picture of the landscapes that inspire her with all the gentleness and fluidity of a great watercolour. There’s a calm reverie to much of the EP that feels like one of those moments basking in a sunset where you just want it to hang on the precipice of the sky forever. In My Nature feels like the warm, satisfying embrace of a cosy cabin and its glowing hearth after a long day spent exploring. Rosie H Sullivan is a wonderful storyteller, and I count myself lucky to live in a here and now where I’m able to be whisked away to the windswept shores which she conjures so vividly.

Rosie H Sullivan’s new EP In My Nature is out 10th November and is perfect for fans of Laura Marling, Phoebe Bridgers and Ailbhe Reddy.