Hello Ladies - Women's Hour Interview

Fiona Burgess isn’t sure where it came from, that undertow of 3am melancholy that characterizes the debut album by her band Women’s Hour. If pressed, she will conjecture that it may owe something to the unusual circumstances in which the record was assembled. But, really, she’s just shooting in the dark. Your guess is as good as hers.

“We had to fit the making of it in around our lives,” she says. “There was no routine or structure. The songs weren’t made when we were ready. It was when the facilities were ready. As soon as the studio became free in we went. For that reason, we were often making it at the quieter time of day: maybe there is a softness to that. Those are the moments you can think more clearly. You aren’t checking your phone every five minutes. We escaped into the studio, cut ourselves off from the world. I don’t know – we weren’t consciously sitting out to produce an album in any particular style.”
As its monochrome sleeve loudly hints, Conversations is a record full of muted emotions, of feelings left unarticulated, songs that never quite rouse themselves to a proper chorus. It’s at once crisply understated and agreeably drowsy, a beguiling splicing of Belle and Sebastian and the xx.
However we are to categorize it, Conversations has become one of the must talked about records of the season – critics are swooning, bloggers tugging their gnome-beards in glee. With little hype in the build up, Women’s Hour have staged quite the entrance, even if they're a little unsure how to deal with all the applause.
“It’s a crazy feeling,” says Burgess, who founded the group in 2011 with twin William. “My life has become quite surreal. We finished the record in February. Since then we’ve added a drummer. Recently we started touring – it’s like we are getting to know the songs all over again.”
Though her background is in theatre, the spotlight has taken some getting used to. Burgess is softly spoken and, you sense, somewhat of an introvert. Fronting a band has not come naturally. She’s had to think her way into it.
“I love sharing my music and I’ve always adored theatre. However, I’m not necessarily that confident. Lately, my self belief has developed massively. There is something about being a musician that is so different from acting. It makes you really vulnerable. You are not a character, are not wearing a costume. You are in your own clothes - don’t’ have a stylist telling you how you are supposed to look. Your stylist is you. You are saying: ‘I am Fiona’. People judge you on that. Ultimately it’s worth it – I find performance incredibly powerful.”
She’s lived in London for half a decade now. However, her northern England accent remains unsullied. Burgess grew up in Kendal, a Lake District town that has also produced Wild Beasts and British Sea Power. The singer is constantly quizzed about her upbringing’s influence on her songwriting – the implication being that a country childhood accounts for some of the music’s glorious somnolence. She’s not so sure about that - she tries not to delve too deeply into the depths of her muse.
“Growing up, I was desperate to leave Kendal,” she says. “I found it claustrophobic. Everyone knew everyone else. You walked down the street and the person across the road might be your auntie’s best friend or whatever. I craved anonymity - a feeling that I could do whatever I wanted and not be judged or commented on.
“I departed with a fairly negative view of the place. However, I’ve spent so long in London now that I scrutinize it objectively too. And London is chaotic and, in its own way, as claustrophobic as Kendal. It is physically overwhelming and non-stop. My relationship with all these places has changed. How that affects the music I’m not sure. But it’s certainly in there: I articulate feelings that are formed by my environment, the things I've seen and done.”
The album Conversations is out now.