Rosie Frater-Taylor: Featherweight
9th February 2024
Fast-emerging British singer-songwriter and guitarist Rosie Frater-Taylor has announced her new album Featherweight, set for release on Cooking Vinyl in February 2024.
The follow-up to 2021’s Bloom, which garnered in excess of 3 million streams, was nominated at Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards, and made revered US radio station KCRW’s Albums Of The Year list, Featherweight marks a stylistic shift for Frater-Taylor, drawing inspiration from a broad spectrum of artists - from PJ Harvey, through Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, to the likes of John Mayer, Meshell Ndegeocello, St Vincent, and Madison Cunningham - and presenting a fresh, unique style that showcases the 24-year-old’s ability to intertwine hard-hitting lyrical ideas with glistening melodies, consummate guitar playing and unpredictable textural contrasts.
Already widely regarded as a virtuoso guitarist and a vocalist with a powerful emotional range and depth, Featherweight sees Frater-Taylor come into her own as a songwriter, offering up 10 sonically adventurous tracks which deftly blur the boundaries between rock, alt pop, neo soul, new-school jazz and folk whilst delving into an array of themes including self-reflection, anger and finding strength in vulnerability. Lead single Hold The Weight, an experimental, angular track that builds to an anthemic outro, expresses the feeling when no amount of words can bear the burden of the intensity of emotion attached to them.
“The new record is grittier, rockier and more intentional for me” explains Frater-Taylor. “We went into the studio shortly after a year of touring my last album and some songs from ‘Featherweight’ - I felt it was very important to capture my live band’s energy and chemistry to do the tracks justice. I feel this is where my desire to make the album ‘punch’ stems from; the sheer strength and excitement I’ve come to feel when performing this music in front of a live audience with just my guitar and the best musicians I know.”
Introspective and experimental, Featherweight also sees Frater-Taylor grappling with self-evaluative themes framed around navigating life as a young woman. The album is an ode to the contradictions, oxymorons and internal battles that arise whilst tackling the complex issues of gender, identity, love and relationships.
"I’ve long believed myself to be an ‘HSP’ (highly sensitive person!) feeling more deeply affected by various experiences than others seem to and often finding myself overwhelmed by the emotions resulting from said experiences. Over the course of writing and finishing this record, navigating life, love and various relationships, I’ve come to take pride in and feel powerful as a result of these aspects of my personality. ‘Featherweight’ is my realisation that (ironically) there’s much strength in expressing vulnerability."
Frater-Taylor’s exploratory sound has already attracted the attention of a diverse array of artists including Jimmy Page, Jordan Rakei, Nitin Sawhney, Madison Cunningham and Everything Everything amongst many others, and with Featherweight her complex musicianship is reaching new peaks. Passionate, honest and pervaded by raw emotion, it’s an album of powerful and alluring siren songs that showcases a boundary-pushing, genre-defying young artist’s blossoming ingenuity and natural approach to storytelling.
2024 UK HEADLINE TOUR
Feb 9 - Bristol, Louisiana
Feb 13 - Leeds, Book Club
Feb 14 - Newcastle, Bobiks (solo show)
Feb 15 - Glasgow, Rum Shack
Feb 16 - Manchester, Deaf Institute
Feb 17 - London, Omeara