Vanessa Murray sits down at the table inside the F.A.C.T. café, the youthful expression of anxious enquiry and stunned reaction to a new set of songs and what someone may think of them, is both endearing and rather cool.  For Vanessa Murray, her debut solo E.P. is one that Time has had a huge hand in, the strength of purpose and will coming together to make a set of songs sound vibrant, exciting, a simmering darkness welded throughout and yet with the beauty and passion flowing throughout.

Catching up with Vanessa Murray is one that will become harder to do over the next few months as the L.I.P.A. student delves deep into her final year and yet the pull of wanting to talk to a woman whose life is on the verge of just getting started is one that must fought for with equal passion, for music, Ms. Murray’s music is all about the undisclosed passion.

I know I was amongst the first to hear the debut E.P. but by heavens it’s excellent stuff.

Vanessa: “Oh my, I’m glad you like it, I’ve wanted to do an E.P. for a quite a while now, at least a couple of years but I didn’t feel as though I had the right amount of songs and as a songwriter it sometimes doesn’t come quick enough for me. I wanted to spread it out and see if there were songs that I felt people would find more catchy or find lyrically interesting and be able to relate to it.

I’m going into my third year now at L.I.P.A. Over the last year I spent recording ‘It’s About Time’ at the institution with a third year sound technology student so that became part of his project as well. It became a kind of a collaboration. Other musicians from my class performed on the songs as well as Luke Moore, who wrote a string arrangement for the song I Don’t Wanna Lose You Like This. It’s gorgeous, it’s amazing, he of course knows what he is doing. We spent from October till May recording and mixing it and then sent it off to Mike Cave for mastering. I’m trying to do all it myself if I can, the whole promotion, the distribution side via ditto music to get the EP onto iTunes and doing editing the E.P. artwork. The photographs were taken by Brian Roberts, a great man, I love his work!

I’m doing it all because it’s a learning curve; I want to learn all the different aspects and to be in control of my own work.”

It has to be said that it is about time that you released your own work onto a greater scale, time after all is the essence of it all.

Vanessa: “Yes, four years I’ve been doing music solo now, since being in bands and stuff, four years, yes it’s been a long time.”

I hope it’s not a precursor that we haven’t got to wait four years for the next set of recordings or an album?

Vanessa: (laughs). “No, I hope not, I really hope not. No, I think I’m a lot more confident in my song-writing now, it’s coming a bit more quickly.”

Has L.I.P.A. brought that out in you?

Vanessa: “I think so. The collaboration side, especially with Luke Moore was so easy, it felt really natural. Our collaboration single ‘Eighteen’ came about when Luke was teaching me music theory at the time, the condition was he would teach me theory if we collaborated on a song. We sat down, discussed ideas and I asked if I could use his rest room and when I came out I had a melody for the chorus in my head, it came just like that, it was just as natural as that, so collaboration and L.I.P.A. have made me more analytical of my lyrics. People say you can’t teach others how to write a song, but it’s nice to hear feedback from people who have been doing it for years. Then you decide whether it’s right or not for you.”

To be fair, the ones who were above you at L.I.P.A. who graduated this summer, there was some very excellent musicians that I know you’ve been aware of and worked with, was that a help to you?

Vanessa: “I think it’s great as you then get to learn and watch their stage presence, their ways of songwriting and some of them just want to give you advice as well which is really nice. Everybody deserves success and I think it’s nice that people want to share it with you.”

You have always seemed very comfortable with what you do, having seen you on stage working with Alan O’ Hare for example as part of his Only Child project, how has that feeling of relaxed helped you with making this E.P.?

Vanessa: “Well when I first started I was not comfortable at all, especially when I first started my solo stuff back in 2011. I didn’t originally want to be a solo artist but through being in bands, I realised the difficulty of getting everybody together at the same time and getting things going. I began to think what if I do something myself and see how it goes. The first gig I did was an open mic night at Heebie Jeebies and I didn’t feel confident at all, I took it really badly and I thought I was terrible but looking back now I just realise I wasn’t confident within myself. But through doing more open mic nights and meeting various people and various other musicians, they have given me so much more confidence when I haven’t believed in myself; I feel confident enough to release something now, I couldn’t have done that a couple of years ago.”

In the review of the E.P. I suggest that there is this feeling of simmering darkness within the songs, you don’t see yourself as a dark person obviously but there is this dark side that comes through the music, how did that fit in?

Vanessa: “Simmering darkness, I like that. Well, I like to write honest songs. I Don’t Wanna Lose You Like This is about when you get close to someone, say when you have a friend of the opposite sex. You start to wonder what it would be like if it was something more? Would it ruin the friendship? You start to wonder if you have feelings for them and what would happen if you did. The song is about not expressing your feelings to this person hence the words “l hold my breath”.

There’s this almost overwhelming feeling, an overpowering sentiment, that there is going to be disappointment somewhere?

Vanessa: “Most definitely, I think there is only one happy song on the E.P., the last one, (laughs). Not all the songs are written from my own personal experience but from others around me and also watching movies. Fire That Burns Within, that’s not a song about break ups but that’s about my own self doubt and writer’s block. I just wasn’t believing in myself really. There was a period where I just wasn’t enjoying music anymore and I don’t know why that happened but I don’t feel like that anymore. The chorus of the song is optimistic though as it says “there is a fire that burns within” and that “I am determined.” If you don’t believe in yourself who else is going to believe in you?”

It comes back to that control doesn’t it, that power or influence to be heard through your words. How do expect your music to flourish over the coming years, don’t leave it four years between this and the next recording?

Vanessa: “I won’t (laughs), I promise. I’m in the process of writing more songs now and I certainly don’t want to leave it four years before releasing something else. I suppose I want to keep writing songs and keep trying to attract a bit of interest with some labels in the future, I have an ambition to at least try and strive for that, a quiet ambition as I’m still trying to figure out things myself. I’m leaving University this year, there’s loads of opportunities out there but I would like to continue writing songs for the rest of my life and have success with it.”

Vanessa will be performing at her EP launch in studio2 on 6th November.

Ian D Hall