New single for Brighton singer Phildel - ahead of album release

She will be playing Brighton's Komedia Studio on Wednesday, September 3, with tickets on sale now.

Since releasing her debut album back in 2013 on Decca, Phildel has forged her own path. Across a further three albums, her output has defied genres, merging folk, alt-pop and neoclassical to create a sound that's all her own.

She has had her music featured on commercials from brands including Apple, Burberry and LG; has gained more than 300 million streams to her name; has won several prestigious songwriting awards; and has collaborated with electronic musicians including biskuwi and Paul Sawyer.

“The first album was when I was about 27. I'm 41 now. The first album came out on Decca, and they're a really kind label. It was my debut song album and I'm really grateful to have had their help.”

Phildel is now writing the next album: “It is going to be an examination of my inner self which is along the lines of my other albums. It is quite an intense inner landscape that they look into. It's not quite the unconscious but it is a kind of non-intellectual area of the mind. I would say that what comes up tends to be Jungian. It tends to be symbols and fragments of lyrics that come to the surface – in the same way that you have dreams that don't seem to be logical but once you reflect on them you can see the process. It is not immediately obvious what they mean but when you glance back you can see how they correlate to your life, and I think that's what I'm going to be channelling for the album. But I feel that there will also be a bit more of a direct response to everyday life on the album as well.

“A couple of years ago I realised that I had ADHD as has one of my sons and I also realised that I had a lot of autistic traits. And that has reshaped my own view of my own emotional landscape. It is giving me a new awareness of my experiences and my feelings towards everyday life – how very isolating it has been. So much of the world is geared towards the neurotypical. So much of the world requires us to function in a neurotypical way, and I think looking back that is what has been so hard.”

Phildel moved to Brighton about ten years ago: “We grew up in London, my partner and I, and I just wanted to escape London. It was a bit too full on, and as I got older, I think I realised why it was so full on, with the ADHD and probably being autistic as well. We moved to Buckinghamshire for a while, but that was a question moving from an area that was too busy to the one that was a bit too rural. So we decided to look for a place that seemed to represent something in between. We just love Brighton. It is a city where people are able to be their authentic selves all the time. That's what drew us to Brighton. We were about to start a family and we just wanted to be somewhere where our children would be able to be themselves without judgement.”