Fri 19th April
Mercury Prize-nominated artist Celeste is back with a vengeance. Known majoritively for her smash hit album Not Your Muse, which featured stirring tracks like ‘Stop This Flame’ and ‘Strange’, the London-based talent is releasing her new single ‘Everyday’ as an exclusive vinyl tomorrow to celebrate Record Store Day 2024.
Providing a much-desired peek into her upcoming album, which will be her first since NYM, the single will be performed for the first time at a discreet show held at the historic Rough Trade record store in Notting Hill. An indomitable display of Celeste’s songwriting prowess, the track embodies themes of emotional rebellion and soulful yearning, drilled home by the artist’s smoky, transfixing vocals. The decision to release the song on Record Store Day comes from Celeste’s unwavering support for independent businesses and their integral role in an industry often bulldozed by dominating corporations. With a personal love for stores like Counterpoint Books and Records in LA and West London’s Honest Jon’s, the decision to release the track in this way reflects the authentic love for music that is threaded through everything Celeste does.
Raised in Brighton, the artist started consuming influences that would lead to her resonant, jazz-tinged sonic stylings from a young age. Recalling her grandfather’s love for Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, Celeste would listen to their cassette tapes on repeat whilst on long drives in his old Jag. As she grew older, The Clash, Janis Joplin and Ray Charles would begin to penetrate her psyche, pushing the American-born singer to explore making music for herself – and it’s gone pretty damn well since then. Named the Brit Awards’ Rising Star in 2020, Celeste now boasts over three million listeners on Spotify alone and an Oscar-nomination for the track she co-wrote for the film The Trial Of The Chicago 7. Sweeping up an adoring cult following throughout her years in the industry, Celeste’s new album is one of the most hotly anticipated in the R&B sphere. We sat down with Celeste ahead of her upcoming show to ask how she gets into the creative zone, what her perfect Sunday looks like and her favourite spot for a post-show bevy.
1. Hey Celeste! How would you describe your sound in three words?
“This next album is orchestral dystopian, but this particular song, ‘Everyday’, is very different to what has been and what’s still to come. ‘Everyday’ samples ‘Death In Vegas’ ‘Dirge’ so that should give you a bit of an idea of what it could sound like :)”
2. What’s the perfect environment to listen to the new single?
“Anywhere as long as it’s loud.”
3. What was the main inspiration behind the new single?
“The song just kind of came out one evening – I was in a club, which is a very rare occasion for me, when I heard this instrumental piece of music and I had this feeling that hadn’t come over me in a while. In the nature of its spontaneity and sway, I found myself in the immediacy of hearing it. Outside in the smoking area I began to record voice notes of all of these melodies and thoughts that were only evoked from that piece of music. I found myself telling the truth, rather than living in the denial of my true feelings for a lost relationship – which was that I really did think of this person all of the time – and if there was anything I wanted in that moment, it would have been then to have been there with that person, despite what consequence or moving backwards that might incur. So the title ‘Everyday’ came with the truth which was very simple in that everyday I awoke, I thought of this person and every evening as I went to bed, they arose within my thoughts again. This obsession-like thought pattern almost became a prayer or a mantra but it was really doing my head in and leading me into the wrong places. In the end I was so sick of feeling so sick to my stomach thinking about it all the time and what I had lost, that this was the moment I abandoned some of that melancholy and began to find my step away from it all and feeling so sad.”
4. If you could collaborate with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
“I would really like to collaborate with a fashion house like Dior or Margiela on some costumes for my live shows next year or later this year. Recently I have been watching America Horror Story and I’d like if they could give me a role there. Then for musicians, I’ve always been so curious about what it might be like to work with Jack White or perhaps Ahnoni as I really admire her songwriting. I still have not written with Samuel T. Herring, although we have spoken about it a bit. He has one of my favourite voices and one of my other favourite singers is called Baby Rose. I was lucky last year to have stumbled across Mor Mor at a studio in la last year after having only met him once before the pandemic and he is also one of my favourite artists. Of the dead, Oscar Levant comes to mind.”
5. What is the strangest gift you have given or received?
“No one really gives me weird gifts, I probably give the weird gifts.”
6. How do you get into your creative zone?
“It’s over a period of time, I think I know when I’m ready to let it begin which really just starts with allowing all of my feelings about the world take the view and shape that they will and when I feel I have understood and absorbed a sufficient amount of what that is, I am ready to write again. From there, it’s just a matter of hearing the right chords to translate and unveil all of that and allow melody and lyrics to eventually unravel and tell all of those stories.”
7. What does a perfect Sunday look like to you?
“I just really like to be at home but then some weekends if I really want to have a perfect day on my own. If I can I will go to Paris for a day and visit a market. I very much enjoy looking at all the things and speaking to the people.”
8. You’re a regular on the fashion week circuit – which show do you always get excited to attend?
“I have been very lucky in having been in attendance at the Dior shows for the last two years or more, I really do respect and admire the creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri. I think she is also one the longest reigning and one of very few female creative directors of a large scale house, which I think is testimony to her skill, resilience and intelligence. I went to the most recent Maison Margiela Artisanal show which was truly unforgettable and had a real sense of atmosphere about it as well as gasp worthy garments! I was also lucky enough to attend the Andreas Kronthaler for Vivienne Westwood show at woman’s fashion week this year which was a very bold statement in performance art coinciding with fashion.
9. Best spot in London for a post-show drink?
“Last time I had a show in London I ended up on the tour bus parked outside Koko. That was Hak Baker’s gig we sung ‘West End Girls’ by the Pet Shop Boys together. I once ended up at Bar Italia after as it’s open late – it’s a good place to meet someone you’d like to flirt with but not to leave with them and the English breakfast tea is very strong last time I drank it, it kept me up all night. However my favourite thing to do is to have people over to my house.”
10. What can we expect from you in the upcoming year?
“Hopefully a single from my album and then the actual album itself. I say “hopefully” because it’s always quite an unpredictable beast in what comes and when it does, but I’m neeearly finished now, so it won’t be too long! I have a title and my opening sequence.”
Photography by Erika Kamano and graphic design by Lucas Owen.
