Sunday 24 May 2015In New Music We Trust stage

Young, Gifted and Damp

If it feels like people have been tipping SOAK—known to her family as Bridie Monds-Watson—as someone to watch for a long time, that’s because her peculiar talents were entirely apparent from a preposterously young age. She first started turning heads in her native Derry-Londonderry at the age of 14, and was quickly spotted by BBC Foyle, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Introducing, all entranced by her mature ability to weave translucent tales from her personal life and set them to a gently plucked guitar.

Zane Lowe soon became very interested, especially after she released 2014’s Blud EP on Goodbye Records (the label run by Chvrches), for which she played all the instruments, and a she delighted a home crowd for BBC Introducing at the Derry-Londonderry Big Weekend in 2013. She then reached the final 15 in the BBC Sound of 2015 poll, toured with George Ezra, and signed an album deal with Rough Trade records. And then there was Sea Creatures, a song she’d be playing almost since the start, and her first to make the Radio 1 A List, swiftly followed by her remarkable Live Lounge cover of Drown by Bring Me The Horizon. And she's STILL only 18.

First Listen: SOAK, 'Before We Forgot How To Dream'

The first words Bridie Monds-Watson sings on her debut album double as a tidy thesis statement: "A teenage heart is an unguided dart." The Irish singer-songwriter, who records under the name SOAK, made Before We Forgot How To Dream while she was still 18 — some of these songs date back to her early teens — so she knows whereof she speaks.

This is, to state the obvious, a coming-of-age album, as Monds-Watson chronicles youthful alienation ("Sea Creatures"), anxiety and shyness ("B a nobody"), and the anguish of her parents' divorce ("Blud") alongside more generalized ruminations on feeling ill-at-ease and at a crossroads. She sings and writes as if she's spent much of her life living inside her own head, and yet there's also an ambitious, idiosyncratic quality to Before We Forgot How To Dream that allows it to feel more sweeping in scope. At times, SOAK's origins feel more Icelandic than Irish, as Monds-Watson achieves Bjork-like otherworldliness even as her subject matter fixes on the anguish of the everyday.

SOAK's debut rarely amplifies Monds-Watson's sound beyond lugubrious seething, and even when it picks up the pace, as in "Garden," the feeling throughout is sort of calmly unsettled — or, in the case of "Shuvels," outright haunted. But don't let Monds-Watson's still, unassuming demeanor throw you off: These songs command attention by burrowing deep under the skin, where they can't be dug out so easily.

Big thanks to BBC Radio 1 for having me at #BigWeekend yesterday! Massive thanks to everyone that came to see me.

You can see my full performance over on iplayer

SOAK - Immigrant Song (by Led Zeppelin)

Bridie Monds-Watson, aka SOAK, does an absolutely killer version of Zeppelin's Immigrant Song exclusively for Fearne Cotton's last show on Radio 1.

SOAK - Sea CreaturesSOAK performs Sea Creatures on Later… with Jools Holland

SOAK - 24 Windowed HouseSOAK perform 24 Windowed House at Glastonbury 2014

Proximos Eventos¡¡¡

Hotly-tipped Derry singer

SOAK is teenage singer songwriter Bridie Monds-Watson from Derry who everyone is talking about. Alongside column inches aplenty in the local and national press, this understated star featured on the Radio 1 playlist last November with her track Fingers Crossed, taken from her second EP Sea Creatures.

As well as being regularly championed by the BBC Introducing family of shows, SOAK has been described by Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody as ‘having unbelievable talent, not only for someone so young, but for anyone at all.’ Nice Gary, very nice.

Often just accompanied by her acoustic guitar, SOAK is a charming and enigmatic performer with a voice that has been compared to Lisa Hannigan and Cat Power.

BBC Introducing Live in Derry-Londonderry - SOAK

Cover in BBC Radio 1

Soak covers Bring Me The Horizons Drown in BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge for Fearne Coton.

BIOGRAPHY

Who is she?
SOAK, born Bridie Monds-Watson, is a 17-year-old multi-instrumentalist who has been drawing comparisons to Cat Power with oblique narratives of adolescence and gently raw vocals. Scottish band CHVRCHES have signed her up to their label, Goodbye Records, and she is currently touring with George Ezra.

How did she get here?
SOAK has been performing and recording for nearly a quarter of her life. She broke onto Derry’s music scene when she was just 14, recording demos, gigging and playing in “a s---ty band” with her friends. She seems both overwhelmed and laissez-faire about her success, with Zane Lowe and BBC 6 Music selecting Blud as a favourite track and a headline show lined up at St Pancras Old Church in April. Although SOAK plays all the instruments on Blud, she denies being a multi-instrumentalist, saying instead she “just dabbles”.Two years ago, struggling to find a good manager, SOAK enlisted her mother’s help to “look after things”. The pair also came up with her stage name: a portmanteau of ‘soul’ and ‘folk’, with SOAK’s music falling somewhere inbetween. She’s now left school and is working on her music full time.

Who are her influences?

Like many teenagers, SOAK is hungry for the new, and it’s mainly new music that influences her sound. She does, however, find inspiration in the art-rock of Foals and The 1975. She grew up listening to Joni Mitchell, who acted as her introduction to folk music and songwriting, as well as the experimental whale song of Pink Floyd’s Echoes. As for her tales of adolescence, SOAK says she feels “compelled to write every song from being in a situation”.

What does she sound like?

The washed-out, sparse guitar-lines and dragging percussion on Blud mean it could sit happily next to the records by chillwave bands Beach House and Best Coast. SOAK’s raspy, vulnerable voice takes on a folk edge on the piano-led Sea Creatures, with a poetic lyricism and teenage insight previously pioneered by other young songwriters Laura Marling and Emmy the Great.

What does she say about her own music?

“I have no idea what genre it belongs in,” she says. “It’s weird, generally, a bit of alternative, a bit folk.”