Woman's Hour

Back in 2011, Woman’s Hour caused a ruckus with tracks like ‘Jenni’ and ‘Human’. But the Kendal/Manchester foursome, fronted by the dulcet tones of Fiona Burgess, soon scrapped their first incarnation, and went into solitary confinement to re-evaluate their existence and sonic identity.

They’ve been absent for a long time, but the comeback was worth the wait – ‘To The End’ is a sultry bout of indietronica with finger clicks and subterranean pizzicato strings, smothered in tantalising vocals from the female-r Burgess (Will Burgess, guitarist, is her brother). They had a decent chunk of time to soul-search, and they’ve returned with a fighting spirit and a defiant, zesty drive to achieve all that they can. They’re a muscular, formidable synth-force.

The group originally began by naming all of their tracks after programmes on Radio 4′s schedule (‘Jenni’ was named after Jenni Murray, presenter of Woman’s Hour, the radio show). Remnants of this practice still linger, obviously in their band name, and on the vinyl for ‘To The End’. The band are still enamoured with the medium – Will has a penchant for The Archers – and for them it provides a nostalgic sense of home. Alongside radio, they’re inspired by the finer details of life – snippets of seemingly banal routines or everyday interactions could end up blossoming into fully-fledged tracks. We catch up with the group in the aftermath of their reincarnation to discuss their period of reinvention, the radio and their sensual, minimalist tones.

Can you enlighten us a little on your backstory? Where are you from, who’s involved and how did the story begin?

Fiona, Nick and I are from Kendal. Josh is from Manchester. We began as a three piece just having some fun playing a couple of parties and really bad gigs, feeding off the scraps that came our way. Pretty early on Josh came along to some rehearsals to jam and work on the sound and it felt really good. Since then the band has just become gradually more important for all of us as a vehicle to try and do something beautiful that we believe in.

I assume you’ve got your name from the Radio 4 show – how come? What’s the link?

Fiona Burgess: When my brother Will and I first started writing music, we didn’t know what to call our songs so we used the titles of Radio 4 programmes as namesakes. So, when it came to our first gig with Nick and Josh, we had a set list of Radio 4 programmes but didn’t have a name and Woman’s Hour just felt very appropriate.

Do you enjoy listening to the radio?

Fiona: I grew up in a household with three brothers and we always had Radio 4 on in the background. It was something that provided a lot of conversation and debate, and also sparked a lot of arguments – particularly listening to Woman’s Hour! When I moved to London one of the only cures for homesickness was Radio 4. It still reminds me of my parents house. I still enjoying listening to the radio, and I occasionally tune-in to other stations…

Will: I love it too. I even like The Archers, although the affair between Lillian and Paul is getting a bit tiresome.

Is it an important medium to preserve, or should it be allowed to slowly disappear?

Fiona: No, it’s an institution!

Will: I don’t think talk radio will disappear. I can see how music radio could feel threatened by the Internet though.

Who, what and where inspires you?

Will: Literally anything. An idea, the sound of someone’s voice, the tone of an email…

Josh Hunnisett: Mainly everyday sounds and feelings.

What was the first album you bought?

Will: The Great Escape – Blur.

Josh: Stars by Simply Red.

What was the most recent?

Will: One of those Soul Jazz Deutsche Elektronische Musik compilations.

Josh: Bauhaus – In The Flat Field.

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What do you do on your downtime from the band?

Fiona: Read, and try to keep writing.

Your single ‘To The End’ sounds remarkably sensual (as does a lot of your music). How did you create that effect?

Will: We are fortunate to have a few analogue synthesisers that have extremely warm sounds. That is a big part of it. Fiona’s voice is key as well, I think it is very beautiful.

Josh: Whilst recording that track we were quite isolated. Only Fiona had the Internet, Will’s laptop with his music on had died, I had moved all my music onto a hard drive and only had three albums to listen too. I think being quite removed from newer music we were able to ‘feel’ what were doing a bit more.

Silence/sparseness is something that features heavily in your sounds. What do you think this achieves?

Fiona: Minimalism. I can’t think straight if it sounds too cluttered. It’s important to give space so that the sounds can have a bigger impact, otherwise so much gets lost.

How did you write and record the ‘To The End’?

Will: Interestingly when I was back in Kendal some time last year, I recorded the chorus piano line into my mobile phone then sent it around. The whole song just built up from that. To be honest, mobile phones are really helpful for catching moments of inspiration. So many of our songs have started with these recordings.

Did you do anything to celebrate the release?

Fiona: When we were getting the test pressings of the vinyl done at Abbey Road, we were asked what we would like inscribed onto the vinyl runoff. It made sense to pay homage to the original song names – ‘The World at One’ and ‘Book At Bedtime’ – so that felt like a nice way to celebrate, to remind ourselves of how it all started.

What was your first gig like?

Fiona: It was at my old flat. We had a house party, and played in front of our mates. I don’t remember much of it, just that it was a themed hat party and Nick was wearing a beret.

How have things changed?

Fiona: We don’t play at my house parties anymore.

Where’s your favourite city/town to tour?

Fiona: We’ve only really played in London, so London I guess.

You had success in the past with ‘Jenni’ and ‘Human’, but have spoken about wanting a clean slate. Why did you want to begin again?

Will: The Internet is a fickle place. We had spent a long time refining our sound and felt that we had made a huge step-up. If people search for us, we want them to be directed to one quality song rather than scatterings of different tracks. It’s about taking control.

What did you do in the time away?

Fiona: Said no to things. We stopped gigging and instead spent time focusing on writing and recording new music. We started again in a way. It was so nice not to have anything else to worry about, just going to the studio to record.

Do you feel like things are now going down the right path?

Fiona: We feel a lot happier with where we are sonically, but we’ve still got a lot to work on and develop. I don’t think we’ll ever be totally satisfied with what we make, when you become complacent it’s time to stop.

What are your longterm plans for the future?

Will: We want to keep on evolving and discovering.

Do you have many plans for the summer? Any festivals or releases coming up?

Will: We have a tour with Still Corners next month and then it’s a case of writing more and developing what we already have until there is a body of work that we believe in and can turn into an album.