Get to know the stellar talents of Erin LeCount with her new music that embodies a captivating journey, delving into emotions and self-discovery. Her debut EP, “Soft Skin, Restless Bones”, is a mesmerising blend of ethereal vocals, cinematic soundscapes, and poignant storytelling. The lead single, “Heaven” is a soulful gospel-infused track that explores finding solace in the support of women, community, and family during challenging times, a sentiment beautifully echoed throughout the EP.
LeCount’s songwriting is a revelation, offering a sincere and confessional glimpse into her experiences, growth, and heartaches. The EP’s tracks such as “Killing Time”, “Don’t Ask” and “Bday Blues” highlight her ability to navigate complex emotions with an introspective touch. With influences ranging from Fiona Apple to FKA Twigs, LeCount crafts an innovative alternative-pop narrative that resonates deeply.
“Soft Skin, Restless Bones” encapsulates the essence of youthful introspection and transformation. Erin LeCount’s artistry shines bright, and her debut EP is an intimate, melancholic, and ultimately uplifting masterpiece that establishes her as an artist poised for a remarkable musical journey. We sat down with the star to get to know her early days, creative processes and future plans…
Stream “Soft Skin, Restless Bones” here…
Read the exclusive interview below…
Hey Erin! How are you? What does a day in the life look like for you currently?
I’m well, thank you – excited! Most days are super routine, I wake up super early and walk or exercise because my brain needs the endorphins and I need activity all the time. Sounds boring but I spend pretty much all day, every day in my shed in the garden where I make music. I’ll be writing and producing or filming and editing or rehearsing, usually with a few zoom calls or walks or something dotted in between. It’s my little safe space. Every now and then there’s a few weeks where I come out of hermit mode, and I’ll be seriously on the go for meetings or sessions or gigs, all the social butterfly duties where I get some kind of outside world contact and then I retreat back to the shed with new things to write about and the cycle continues, I kind of like it that way.
Tell us about your early days. How did you fall in love with music?
When I was little I was proper “away with the fairies” – I’d tell lots of stories, I’d write them down and they’d turn into weird long monologue songs and I took any opportunity to be as loud as I could and put on shows for anyone who’d give me the attention. Then I kept doing it wherever I got the opportunity. I always felt like I was winging it and I never committed to real lessons because I just liked making whatever noise I wanted to be honest and I was having fun so never felt the need to. A primary school music teacher owned this great local music venue, the ‘Hermit Club’ in Brentwood – and he let me and friends rehearse there every weekend, (I owe him a lot for that) and I feel like I kept ending up on stage making my noise since then.
Who have been main inspirations to you personally and musically throughout your journey so far?
The artists I first loved were your standard British artist answers – Adele, Duffy and Florence as a kid, those big, loud voices and the drama of it all. They were the ones I sang along to all the time and they probably inspired me to start. Sampha, Kate Bush, BANKS made me want to produce. Then I feel like this sounds so soppy but my main inspirations are the people that I know personally who are doing music too – the people I’ve met the last couple of years and befriended, collaborated with, the producers I’ve worked with who just let me watch over their shoulders in awe and ask questions. When I started doing sessions aged seventeen / eighteen, I just remember thinking I wanted to be like them, seeing the way they’d mastered their craft gave me this excitement to want to start and I was so desperate to understand it all more.
How has your sound and artistry changed since embarking on your music career?
I’ve grown up a lot in the past couple of years in the process of making the EP, I spent the years before that just doing acoustic gig nights and your soft ‘cursive’ kind of covers with a mic stand and now when I perform I can’t stand still and I’m using Ableton with midi controllers and pads and weird live vocal loops happening. It keeps changing all the time because I just keep finding more things I love and have fun with. That was how I started making the demos for the EP – it was just led by whatever I liked even if it was rough around the edges, as long as I felt strongly about it I didn’t care. Then the category of “what I liked / felt strongly about” kept expanding the more I worked with people like Jakwob. I’m already excited for the next project, it’s like a never ending playground.
Congratulations on your debut EP “Soft Skin, Restless Bones”! Tell us about the message and motive behind the EP?
Thank you! The songs on this are quite literally some of the first ones I ever made which is so fitting because this EP is about all the ‘first times’ I felt and experienced a lot of things, so it feels like reading my own diary. I had this feeling I’d missed out on most of my best years, so between 17-19 years old I kind of tried to make up for it by throwing myself headfirst into self destructive stuff – relationships (Killing Time, Heartbreak Hotel), making my first real bad mistakes and running away from them (Mind the Gap), having my first experience relapsing with my mental health as an adult where I suddenly realised I wasn’t a child anymore and I had more responsibility to take care of myself now (Don’t Ask, Bday Blues) and I was just documenting it all as I was feeling it. Each of the six songs on the EP are “aha” moments I had during that time, the big and small moments of self awareness or realisation.
Your single “Heaven” is a beautiful leading track. What do you want your audience to feel when they listen to it?
“Euphoric” feels like the word I want to use! Only because that’s how I felt when I heard that build in the middle of the song for the first time on speakers and I cried. Everything I was writing at the time was so cynical and even though Heaven still has that side to it, it’s one of the more hopeful songs. I want people to feel that lightness that it gave me – like the moment a weight lifts off your shoulders or you realise something big.
Which track stands out the most for you within the EP and why?
Heaven has to be it for me. There’s nothing else I’ve made that really sounds like it yet. It felt like I’d heard it a hundred times in my head before I ever even wrote and recorded it. I think it’s the “love song” of the EP, and I typically shy away from love songs because I always feel like they don’t sound like me, whereas Heaven was just the most natural and easy thing ever. It’s also my dad’s favourite.
What was the creative process behind the project like?
Honestly I’d been doing lots of sessions with different people and writing in the session which was great for experience, but nothing I felt connected to because I’d overthink it. The stuff I felt strongly about was whatever I felt like making on Logic Pro at home, when I had the chance to be alone and more honest, when there was no pressure. I was sending all these demos to the head of my label Kurtis. I had so many, then by pure coincidence he introduced me to James (Jakwob) and we spent an evening in the studio all three of us playing my demos one by one and realising there were five or six ones that we all felt were special. So we focused on them, I took the project stems to James and we built on each song til they were these bigger and better versions of themselves. I’m grateful we managed to keep everything that felt so intimate and homemade about the very first “rough round the edges’ versions.
Who would be a dream collaboration of yours to work with?
I have a list of dream collaborations that I’d want to all fuse together in a project or something. Sampha. Bon Iver. Imogen Heap. Florence Welch. Frank Ocean. James Blake. FKA Twigs. Ethel Cain. And I’d also really just like to go for dinner with Fiona Apple, just to be in her presence.
What is the rest of 2023 looking like for you? Any exciting projects in the pipeline?
I’m already thinking about the next project, whatever that ends up being. But right now being on stage and getting to share this EP live is the main thing on my mind. Shouting about them from the rooftops. I’d like to get out my comfort zone some more and leave the shed to collaborate instead for a while too.