RACHEL SERMANNI ON HOW HER PREGNANCY SHAPED THE SOUND OF ‘SWALLOW ME’
VOCAL GIRLS writer and songwriter Jess Edwards caught up with the ever-wonderful Rachel Sermanni to chat about her new EP, her writing process and how pregnancy affected the two.
Whether planned or not, embarking on the journey of motherhood is bound to evoke a whir of emotions in anyone - and, with her latest instalment, Rachel Sermanni has surrendered herself to the looming changes attached to the process. Representing the shedding of old skin, ‘Swallow Me’ embodies the liminal space of what’s next and how it will come to be.
An accomplished musician and storyteller, Rachel Sermanni is a Scottish singer/songwriter “that makes the mundane moments mystical”. Documenting the ebbs and flows of life, she has released an ethereal collection of works over the last decade. After receiving a shock-positive pregnancy test, Rachel’s recent release details her latest chapter of becoming a mother, portraying an honest account of one of life’s most intimidating miracles.
Having admired Rachel’s work for several years, I was incredibly excited to chat with her about the new record. Zooming from her home up in Scotland, it was like chatting to an old friend; I was prepped and ready to go with my list of questions, all of which I didn’t look at once! Instead, we just had a lovely chat discussing our shared experiences as songwriters, the parallels Rachel experienced between pregnancy and creativity - and how recording in a shed might actually be better than a big fancy studio!
Explaining the importance of giving herself time to process feelings and how that’s been fundamental to her authentic writing process, Rachel said: “I can’t write in the heat of the moment because I then write from a particular angle that’s not serving anything. It’s often not got the right perspective that creates the right momentum,” she tells me. “What I’ve often found is, especially when coming from a place of anger, that feeling is never any use to me. You can be in a place, and sometimes you can just be so one-sided, and if you perceive yourself as a victim, it just doesn’t make for a true, honest song.” Rachel immediately gave the classic example of a breakup and how in any emotional ordeal, “you just have to go through it.”
During her pregnancy, however, Rachel explained how she was unusually able to write amid the intense transition. ‘Brighton House’ and ‘Travelled’ were even written whilst on tour in America too. However, the impending uncertainty of motherhood left Rachel with no other choice than to simply surrender to the change. “Before, when I had days off between gigs, I could distract myself. I would’ve just been doing my usual, like wandering and taking runs, even taking my mandolin and looking for people to have busk with - adventurous stuff. Then when I was pregnant, I was still doing that, but I was very, very conscious that it was the last time I was going to do that [before becoming a mother].”
As we delved deeper into the topic, Rachel expressed her interest in holism, which is “the theory that parts of a whole are in intimate interconnection, such that they cannot exist independently of the whole, or cannot be understood without reference to the whole, which is thus regarded as greater than the sum of its parts.” So essentially, the mind and body are to be viewed as one, not separate entities. Upon observing her body throughout pregnancy and learning more about her anatomy, Rachel presented the idea of the womb representing a space of creation. She described how at times of peak creativity, she’s also experienced a heightened sensual desire. “I just wonder if being pregnant and being entirely in the act of creating, that maybe I wasn’t following the same normal rules as I do in my usual non-pregnant body, which is that I can only write when I’m out of the storm. Whereas maybe in the pregnant body, I could write in the storm because that was literally my embodiment at the time.” The idea was fascinating to me, as it was a parallel I’d never seen drawn before.
I went on to ask Rachel if she could recall any other parallels from whilst she was pregnant. Aside from what was going on in her personal life, she was excited to share the changes to her voice, “I could do more acrobatics with my voice which was so cool!” Due to the body’s response, it naturally becomes more flexible when pregnant and preparing for birth. This flexibility affects a person from head to toe and so, therefore, includes the larynx. Despite losing some abdominal strength from the pregnancy, Rachel recovered seemingly soon after and also explained how residually she was left with a greater vocal capacity, and a newfound sense of self. “It’s one of those things you just come out of, and you’re like, there’s more to me than I thought! Those things always give you more capacity in your ability to write, and to sing, or to perform. In the song ‘Travelled’, there’s this bit at the end where I go off on one, and I’m making noises that I definitely wouldn’t have made before having Rosa, and that’s probably to do with confidence. But the confidence exists because I feel a little bit like I don’t care anymore... Like when I was giving birth, I was making crazy noises that I never knew existed within my body; they were very animal-like noises.”
For the introverted among us, there’s a highly sought need to be by ourselves at times. We need to savour ourselves in order to let loose, as Rachel outlines, “I think there’s an aspect of when we’re on our own, that despite this heart and gut on sleeve trait, there’s a paradox of being also quite introverted... I often found that there was a tenderness in my voice that only came across when no one else was listening; when no one else was there [when recording the EP].” Comparing her experience of recording in private to a studio setting, Rachel made a good point that, “in a more formal official setting, you inhabit a different aspect of yourself a little bit and you’re more on show. Therefore you naturally have some armour on you.”
In my opinion, a heart-wrenching emotional vocal performance will always outweigh a flawless technical one. I want to be sucked in and feel exactly what an artist is feeling. They say, though, that you’ll never be able to recreate the demo, but often the demo is almost always the most authentic performance. It’s the first and usually the most genuine. You’ll never be able to physically go back to the time you first wrote a song. The feeling can be somewhat recreated, but it will never quite be the same. You have to let go. Unless, of course, you’re willing to release ‘untitled voice note #541’ or that GarageBand project you don’t remember the name of! So how do you reconnect with old feelings? Do you even reconnect, or do you draw from new experiences in an attempt to try and relate to your previous self? “Me and my manager, Alex, have had this conversation a couple of times before. You can never create the demo again, but that's the beauty of them! It’s never going to be the same and, for that reason, I probably will always love the demos more.”
‘Swallow Me’ was recorded in lockdown last year, two to three years after the songs were initially written. With the substantial advance in time, Rachel's ability to collate such a profound abundance of emotion sparks a deep reverence within me. The four tracks were mostly recorded from home and then sent to producer Fin Greenall of the band Fink, who connected with several other collaborators. “Fin produced it and sent it to all of his various friends, mainly around Europe but a few people in America as well. Kind of weird, but I love the sound of it! I think it sounds like a really cool band - but I’ve never met the guys before… Some of the musicians on the EP are musicians that I probably would never have been able to meet in any other circumstance, so that’s quite cool.”
Whether in her mother’s shed surrounded by curtains and climbing rope, or on the floor of her living room tucked beneath a fort of pillows, Rachel noted how due to her uncomplicated recording processes, “this EP does feel as raw as the demos in many aspects. Perhaps it’s just as simple as stop getting fancy.” For example, she explained how she was struggling with the performance of the title track, ‘Swallow Me’ for a long time, and in her words, she was just too over-dramatic. But as soon as she pulled back, the humour bubbled in. Having the space to experiment and be free of judgement was also a key factor when recording the EP, “it’s like you want to feel like you’re allowed to try anything... You’ve not got somebody being like “no, we won’t do that!” You don’t even have to worry about that voice because you’re on your own.”
The precious narrative of ‘Swallow Me’ documents a journey that many women endure. Rachel herself even explained that “It is a story well told, but I had to let it out. Coming into pregnancy and coming to the other side, it illuminated aspects of the woman’s journey, especially of the musician woman’s journey, if they choose to have a child - and that made me really appreciate it.”
Rachel is set to go out on tour in November, kicking things off in London. You can grab your tickets here:
https://www.rachelsermanni.com/live
Follow Rachel:
Instagram: @rachelsermanni
Facebook: Rachel Sermanni
Twitter: @RachelSermanni
Listen to ‘Swallow Me’: