On the Rise
Yoshika Colwell

“When I was around 15, I wrote a lot of songs — I’d write one, finish it, and move on. I think it was that youthful confidence, or maybe just a lack of self-awareness. I wasn’t overthinking anything. There’s a song I wrote when I was 15 called 'Wasting Time,' and my parents still think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. Back then, I wasn’t thinking long-term about music. There was no end goal — I wasn’t writing songs with the idea of winning a Grammy or anything. I was just doing it because it felt right, like I had something to process — usually about my first boyfriend, of course. There’s a line in 'Wasting Time' that goes, 'I had to put my heart through a sin,' and when I look back, I’m like, 'I was 15 — what did I even know about heartbreak?' It was all so melodramatic.”

It’s just shy of a year since the release of her debut EP, There’s A Time, a collection of songs that heralded her as a fresh voice in contemporary UK folk music. The making and release of a debut collection is a big deal for any artist, but it was a feat Colwell never believed she’d ever accomplish.

“It's really only been the last three years that I’ve started to realise how much of a negative loop I was in with music,” she states, touching on the decade that it took to actually release her debut single. “It became this painful thing in my head — either I had to fully commit to it, or let it go. But I couldn’t do either. I wasn’t making music, and that hurt, but I also couldn’t finish anything. I created this unwinnable situation for myself where I couldn’t move on, but I also couldn’t complete what I started. It was like, what’s going on here?”

Growing up, she listened to music with her parents. Her father, a guitarist and music lover, would host “pop parties” at his home studio and would record cover songs sung by friends who were celebrating birthdays. Whenever Colwell would write a song, he’d encourage her to record it. “I used to listen to a lot of music with my parents. They were super into music and had an amazing sound system. A lot of their connection with each other was about listening to records really loud — like lying on the floor, just fully immersed. Different genres, too.

"When I was really young, they would play left field stuff. I don’t remember bouncing to it myself, but apparently, I did — that's more something they've told me. There was just this really diverse mix of music, and we were always discussing it, talking about it. As long as I can remember, I was listening to my dad play. But the first record I remember listening to obsessively was ABBA’s Gold and Eva Cassidy — I was just so into them. And even though Eva Cassidy's music is more serious, there's something about those accessible melodies and lyrics — they just hit your brain in a certain way. It’s like an endorphin rush. It makes me laugh that those were the two records I was obsessed with, but they really stuck with me.”

At 18, she opted to go to BIMM University for a year instead of pursuing university. At her parents’ request, she deferred her place for a year. “I told them I wanted to move to Brighton and be a musician,” she laughs. After BIMM, she went to the University of York to study drama and theatre. She was still playing music and singing at open mic nights, but started to become debilitated by her lack of confidence. “As I got older, I found it harder to finish songs. A lot of perfectionism crept in. When you’re a kid, you don’t think about external validation, but as an adult, you start worrying about what people will think. I went from just creating for the sake of it to feeling paralyzed by the fear of not being perfect. It was stifling.”

A way to break through some of that was being a part of LUUNA, a trip-hop band. For the first time, Colwell was writing with other people — her two bandmates — instead of writing alone. They gigged tons and released an EP, an experience Colwell describes as a pivotal time for her both as a songwriter and a performer. “Writing in a band setting was interesting because it felt like a stepping stone for me. When you're in a room with other people, there’s this sense of accountability — like, we're going to finish this song because we have to. It’s not just me overthinking alone; there are three of us, and we’re pushing through together. That really helped me, especially since I’ve always struggled with finishing things.”

Colwell’s lack of confidence and obsession with perfectionism with her music was the thread that tied her twenties together, resulting in thousands of unfinished songs, demos, and notebooks full of lyrics — just fragments of ideas — that never came to fruition. At a crossroads — either staying in York, a place where most of her friends had left, or leave — she decided to start fresh, living in a caravan in Kent where she looked after her friend’s pregnant cat. “It was a wild, eccentric time,” she laughs. “Even then, I kept writing — though I still wasn’t finishing much. It was a strange but creative period in my life.”

A new relationship at the start of the pandemic eventually brought her to Broadstairs where she began “playing house” and dipping into a period of introspection because of a lack of support network. “It was a strange combination of being alone with my thoughts but also living with someone I barely knew — like playing house together. It was surreal. I struggled a lot. I don’t want to be dramatic, but I was quite depressed. I was grasping for meaning, trying to latch onto something. I love writing lyrics and putting words to music, but a lot of what I wrote back then felt repetitive. When I read it back, I realised I wasn’t okay. The same themes kept coming up over and over again.”

Colwell’s life began to feel almost cyclical — that relationship ended in the spring of 2023 and she moved back to Kent again. At first, it felt like a regression — she was back in the caravan, living on her parents’ property, working as a chef at their cafe. People her age — nearly 30 — were settling down. That time was the catalyst for Colwell finally taking control of her life and music. “It was exactly what I needed,” she admits. “It gave me emotional space — the first time in a long while. I had all these half-finished songs, many about that relationship or processing other things, and suddenly, I was in this safe, quiet place where I could finally write, sing, and play guitar without anyone watching. No one was perceiving me, and I wasn’t embarrassed about writing or singing softly to myself.”

When chatting, I suggest that music became a wound that kept scabbing but would never heal — almost like Colwell would incessantly pick at it until it hurt. “That’s a perfect description. It just wouldn’t heal because I wasn’t leaning into it — I wasn’t fully pursuing it. I still think about that a lot — why we feel so compelled to do certain things, all the layers behind it. I’ve tried to psychoanalyze myself, asking why I’m so attached to music. It’s like being a dog with a bone. But honestly, once I started finishing songs, it felt so freeing. It was such a relief. When we made the EP last year, I couldn’t believe it. We recorded it live in January, so it’s not even been a year since we released it, but the songs themselves were written much earlier, some from the year before, and others even older.”

While living in that caravan, she ripped off the plaster and forced herself to finish the songs which she deems a “make-or-break” situation for her creative self. The result is a forthcoming body of work, currently unreleased and unannounced, but serves as an act of emotional release for Colwell. “After finishing the album, I felt a major sense of catharsis. The EP didn’t feel that way — maybe because it was so raw and immediate. We recorded it live, and that process didn’t leave much room for over-analysis. It was emotional and fun, done in just five days at Ollie’s studio last January with some amazing musicians. We all sat in a circle — it felt like being with family. It kept us present, which was the perfect way to create that first project. We added a few loops and backing vocals, but it was mostly live. The album, though, was a different story — more layered, with lots of tracking and adding parts. There was way more time for overthinking — listening to the same tracks again and again, wondering if a synth part should be swapped for a slightly different sound.”

As someone who was trying to start in an industry that celebrates youth and stereotypical beauty standards, coming to terms with being 30 was difficult for Colwell (“I look at my old diaries, and even at 23, I thought I was already too old, like I'd missed my chance”). It was something Colwell had to cut away, chopping away her long locks first during lockdown and then last summer. It was an act of rebellion — of detaching herself from the old versions of who she was and permitting herself to be someone new.

Exhaling for the first time after moving back to London inspired her new single, “Fighting on the Wing,” a song born from a stream of consciousness writing session. “I was feeling this relief at being back in London, realizing my life could change,” she explains. “During Covid, I felt like life was static and I didn’t know how to affect any change. This point in my life feels like a push forward — like saying, “Come on, you can do this.” The album captures a decade of processing — there’s sadness, but there’s also a realization that you can’t keep rehashing things forever. At some point, you have to put those feelings down, or it’ll wear you out.”

When she speaks about the next releases, it’s apparent that she’s ready to release them and move onto the next chapter. Making the album was a lesson in confrontation — learning how to let go of the things she’s held onto for so long because it’s exhausting to carry everything forever. “These songs make peace with those feelings without pathologizing them. It charts my 20s, starting from a place of defeat — feeling stuck, repeating patterns. In the end, they say: Let the wound heal. Let the scar form. You don’t have to deny what happened, but you also don’t have to keep picking at it.”