Kirstie MacLean

Kirstie MacLean, 20, from Edinburgh, Scotland shows her powerful, unique vocals and persona through her music. Kirstie is a singer/songwriter who has released one original song called 'Haze' and a demo EP called 'Pandemos' that came out early December.

Kirstie has showcased her musical abilities on Instagram, primarily; posting covers of popular songs and gaining an audience. In 2019 she released her single 'Haze', which has a dreamlike, calming acoustic guitar accompaniment, meaning the vocals are raw, powerful and clear. This single is clearly the start to an exciting career in the music industry and gives us a big insight to the type of music Kirstie performs well.

Make sure to stream Kirstie's debut EP, you won't regret it :)

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Interview

1. What first got you interested in music? "I've always been interested in music from a young age, my parents loved it and I grew really fond of classical music; starting cello lessons when I was around 8 and slowly expanding my music taste from there. My dad played a lot of The Beatles and 50s/60s music and my mum was always obsessed with the 80s - probably what inspired the mullet!"

2. What was your inspiration for writing 'Haze'? "Haze was the first 'proper' song I've written. I'd played around with different ideas and structures as I first started to write songs. I loved every bit of it . I used a soft guitar part as the base of the song and melody, adding harmonies and cello parts along the way. The lyrics were written as I had a breakthrough with my mental health . To summarise, it tells a story about dissociating in order to avoid crappy events happening at the time of me leaving school and going out into the 'real world'. It resolves with a sense of positivity, working hard to find my feet in this scary place and closing doors on chapters and people in my life that were affecting me negatively. Seeing positivity in the future, no matter where it took me, was so important."

3. Did you find it hard to start writing music?

"To begin with, I did find it difficult to find my style of songwriting. I listened to a lot of Dodie and chill music at the time I wrote Haze, and couldn't play much guitar, so the instrumental parts being simple to start with to then build on them with harmonies/layers etc. while recording. Pandemos was a bit different in the sense that I wanted to incorporate my extensive taste in music into my songs, hence the random mix of genres! When writing lyrics, I always find it easier to have a topic/construct in mind that I can build on and come up with something I can relate to. For me, it's always easier to have a starting point and a story in my head that I can put into words."

4. What was your inspiration for the 'Pandemos' EP?

"My Pandemos EP was written and recorded over around 6 months through the global pandemic. There's a lot of meaning in my songs and it's a personal EP in a lot of ways, but the storytelling method always worked its way into my ideas for lyrics! 'Home From Home' is one of my favourites from the EP. It's an eerie, haunting track based on my experience of life with family in Stornoway [Scotland], a place that I hold very close to my heart. I wrote it in 20 minutes because I found it so easy to write about a place I feel so comfortable and hold a lot of fond memories in. I write with something in mind, but my music is very much open for interpretation. I think it would be interesting to see what different listeners' takes are on my lyrics and find out how they perceive and relate to them!"

5. What was the writing process like for your 'Pandemos' EP?

"The writing process for Pandemos was pretty shambolic in the sense that none of the songs fitted into a certain genre or style, so I was just making random songs that I really liked individually but didn't necessarily fit together as an album. Eventually, I came up with the idea to just release a demo EP so people could hear what my music sounded like without having to stick to a certain sound."

6. Are you excited for the release of your first EP? "I'm so happy to finally release my little EP. All of it was recorded on my phone from my bedroom during lockdown and I was hesitant to release it at first because it's so rough - but all of the feedback I've received made my heart warm and fuelled me to do more of what I love, for others to love it too."

- Kirstie MacLean