JW Ridley's eclectic tastes fuel his singular sound

Ridley's amorphous sound skirts the whirlpools of '80s indie/goth-pop, the shadowy layers of '90s shoegaze, and dreamy habitats far removed from this mortal plane, but it never lingers long enough in any one area to get pigeonholed. He's constructed this world from a variety of aural titbits and visual specimens, from the silver screen to tomes of thought-provoking prose. Nigerian pop and Motown and classic songwriters have all impacted the shape of JW Ridley, but none of these ideas take charge; Ridley is making something totally his own.

Take a listen to the JW Ridley EP below, and then get to know the man behind it after with our Q&A.

BESTFIT: Could you introduce yourself for us please?
JW Ridley: "My name is Jack and I'm a songwriter."

What do you try to do with your music and how do you achieve this?
JW: "I guess I try and explore things that don't feel possible to explore in any other way for me. It is impossible to know what I achieve but it definitely occupies a space that nothing else does."

Can you tell us what musical and non-musical influences have shaped your sound?
JW: "When I was younger I was really into songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Springsteen, Dylan, and Nick Drake. Those artists just completely transported me. Before that it was pretty much all Motown. I was really into poetry too - I still am but I think when you're younger that stuff really shapes you. From there I got more into the world of bands, I guess. There has also been a lot of recent music from Nigeria that I love like Mr Eazi and Davido, along with older stuff like Ali Chukwuma. Film has always been important for me too, there are way too many to list. In more recent years writers like Rilke and Sartre."

What should people expect from your Five Day Forecast show?
JW: "It will be the first show with my new live band so there is that."

What are you working on now/next?
JW: "I am writing some new material at the moment and working with the new live band."

How is 2018 shaping up? What are you looking forward to next year?
JW: "I'm looking forward to writing and recording, seeing what kind of shape new stuff takes as a body of work."