Trout’s music is visceral, it’s instinctive. She spent her early years in Copenhagen by her British mother and Iranian father, before moving to – as she put it – a ‘particularly Welsh part of Wales’. The rurality of Wales became a significant part of her identity, something has continued to reflect in their artistic vision and approach.

Now Liverpool-based after moving for university, Trout soon began rising through the cultural hotspot’s music scene, becoming a household name in the city, as well as the wider indie rock space. She creates within a DIY ethos, with an inherent sense of character and personality flowing through her raw, thoughtful and charismatic style.

We have now been blessed with Trout’s debut EP, “Colourpicker”, released via the esteemed Chess Club Records. Across the six tracks, the breadth of Trout’s musical knowledge and influence is vivid, merging conventional indie tendencies with post-punk, folk, grunge and more. The intimacy in their songwriting is apparent across the body of work, with Trout offering reflective and open narratives.

We wanted to know more about the EP, so enlisted Trout for a more focused explanation. Delving into the thought behind the project, track-by-track, Trout tells all on her terrific debut offering.

Listen to the full EP…

“gutter”

‘Gutter’ was written after a break up (as usual). I’d been with someone who didn’t understand what it was like to be depressed, and thought it was a decision people make, rather than something that happens to you. I realised it was something I thought about a lot subconsciously, then finally wrote this song about it and it stopped bugging me. I’m really proud of the production on this, as it was the first time I felt like I was getting somewhere with it, and developing my own style.

“in my room”

“in my room” was the last song I wrote for the EP – it wasn’t originally going to be included but I squeezed it on at the end. With it being the most recent of them all, it’s definitely the beginning of a development in my sound, and so I didn’t want to wait to release it. It feels the most ‘me’ out of them all, and I feel very connected to it. It’s about someone being completely in love, but almost obsessively. The idea that they want them to be everywhere and everything, good and bad – ‘Be the places I ignore / The hairs on my bed / Be the mould growing up my door’. It’s meant to be sweet and endearing but also a little creepy at the same time. This is definitely my favourite one to play live.

“sad sad sad sad sad”
“sad sad sad sad sad” is one of the oldest songs from the Colourpicker EP and probably took the longest to finish. I kept going back to it over a year or so while writing the other songs and would just chip away at it slowly. It’s definitely the furthest from my writing and production style now, as it has come a long way since then, but it’s really nice for me to see that progression all within the EP. It feels like years of my life and also musical development all in one place. The song is very nostalgic and youthful to me, and reminds me of the younger version of myself.

“words”
“words” is about two people self-sabotaging a relationship together and being unhappy in the process. It’s mostly about being unheard. This started off as a much quieter acoustic song, but after working on my production with songs like “gutter” and “bugs” where I was using a lot of vocal-glitches and pitch-shifting, I went back to “words” and went a bit mad with the production. It’s become something that I’m really happy with, and sticks out in terms of its style from the others.

“garden”
“garden” is about any kind of addiction that people may have, with substance or people or anything, and how it consumes you. With my synesthesia, “garden” inspires a lot of greens and blues for me, with quite a leafy texture, which inspired the name. It sounds quite a lot like a love song but I guess it’s darker than that. I wrote it in the middle of Summer in my old studio apartment in Liverpool; it overlooked the city and was such a cosy place to sit and write as you could just watch everything happening around you. I turned into a bit of a recluse there working on the EP, as I never really felt the need to leave, and I think it was that that encouraged the song “garden.” The song makes me think of being in that flat in my own little bubble.

“bugs”
“bugs” is another one like “sad sad sad sad sad” where it came to fruition over time, more so production-wise. I was moving around houses at the time, and kept coming back to the song whenever I was settled, adding more and more guitar parts and layering the drums, and slowly redoing all of the individual parts until it became a more solid demo. “bugs” was the first song I ever released. I had wanted to release music for so long, but never knew when the right time was to do it. This was the first time I felt fully proud of anything I’d made, and just wanted to share it and see what happened, as I was really sick of having nothing ‘out there’. ‘bugs’ about the idea of watching the bugs outside your window being more productive than you, and the feeling that you’ve wasted time or missed an opportunity. I’m so glad I did as it gave me the exposure to form a band and continue making more and more silly songs about silly creatures.