Winnie Raeder
Winnie Raeder never set out to become an artist. Growing up in Aabenraa, a small fjord-side town in Southern Denmark, the songs she wrote as a teenager were hidden, private things, their darkness at complete odds with the extroverted joker she presented everyday.
Three years after the release of debut single ‘Don’t You Dare’ the fear of bearing her inner turmoil has quietened. Raeder no longer worries about the nature of the “weighted and heavy” topics she’s drawn to. Inspired by the eviscerating candour of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Geoff Buckley, she began writing songs that dug deep into the dark, messy guts that she searches out as a listener – flecked with electric pulses of synthesised grandeur that recall James Blake and Bon Iver. “I like music to take me to a place where I have to confront shit,” she says. “You almost want to be scared, or challenged, with something that makes you stop. Shake me, do something!” she exclaims. “That’s an element I really try to keep in my own work.“
And on the Danish singer’s debut EP ‘I Could Swim’ – written in her river-side studio in Copenhagen, and recorded in Brixton with co-producer Beni Giles (Lianne La Havas, Kwala) – Raeder explores the dizzying sensation of letting go completely: plunging into the unknown, thrashing waters of love and loss without putting up a fight. Atop the crashing horns of ‘Party’ and the chattering bird-song and spiralling strings of its title-track – secretly recorded as Raeder “mucked about'' on a piano – she explores the inevitably of death, focused on the very specific “spot between heartbreak and beauty”. “Every day I’m reminded it’s going to end, and it makes me want to go out and live more,” she says. “That’s really where my light comes in.”
In some way, all of these songs are addressed to the most formative person in her life. “My grandma passed away many years ago, and in most of my songs, there’s a piece of her,” she says. “She’s in all of them, she just keeps showing up. She was my person in life. If she had been ‘round for longer, when I was a little older, I think I could’ve understood more things quicker.” Now music serves as Raeder’s medium of continuing the conversation.
Though Winnie Raeder’s journey to the present has been an uncertain one, begun by tentatively dipping a toe, ‘I Could Swim’ marks the moment of fully diving in. Sitting with the hesitation has paid off – spellbindingly crafted and brutally honest, it marks a bold first step from an artist who has summoned the strength to examine her innermost thoughts under direct, unwavering light.
"Raw and emotional" - DORK
Winnie Raeder
Winnie Raeder never set out to become an artist. Growing up in Aabenraa, a small fjord-side town in Southern Denmark, the songs she wrote as a teenager were hidden, private things, their darkness at complete odds with the extroverted joker she presented everyday.
Three years after the release of debut single ‘Don’t You Dare’ the fear of bearing her inner turmoil has quietened. Raeder no longer worries about the nature of the “weighted and heavy” topics she’s drawn to. Inspired by the eviscerating candour of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Geoff Buckley, she began writing songs that dug deep into the dark, messy guts that she searches out as a listener – flecked with electric pulses of synthesised grandeur that recall James Blake and Bon Iver. “I like music to take me to a place where I have to confront shit,” she says. “You almost want to be scared, or challenged, with something that makes you stop. Shake me, do something!” she exclaims. “That’s an element I really try to keep in my own work.“
And on the Danish singer’s debut EP ‘I Could Swim’ – written in her river-side studio in Copenhagen, and recorded in Brixton with co-producer Beni Giles (Lianne La Havas, Kwala) – Raeder explores the dizzying sensation of letting go completely: plunging into the unknown, thrashing waters of love and loss without putting up a fight. Atop the crashing horns of ‘Party’ and the chattering bird-song and spiralling strings of its title-track – secretly recorded as Raeder “mucked about'' on a piano – she explores the inevitably of death, focused on the very specific “spot between heartbreak and beauty”. “Every day I’m reminded it’s going to end, and it makes me want to go out and live more,” she says. “That’s really where my light comes in.”
In some way, all of these songs are addressed to the most formative person in her life. “My grandma passed away many years ago, and in most of my songs, there’s a piece of her,” she says. “She’s in all of them, she just keeps showing up. She was my person in life. If she had been ‘round for longer, when I was a little older, I think I could’ve understood more things quicker.” Now music serves as Raeder’s medium of continuing the conversation.
Though Winnie Raeder’s journey to the present has been an uncertain one, begun by tentatively dipping a toe, ‘I Could Swim’ marks the moment of fully diving in. Sitting with the hesitation has paid off – spellbindingly crafted and brutally honest, it marks a bold first step from an artist who has summoned the strength to examine her innermost thoughts under direct, unwavering light.
"Raw and emotional" - DORK
