Angharad Drake

Angharad Drake is trying something new. After her 2017 full-length album debut with “Ghost,” Drake moved from bustling Brisbane to the much quieter Sunshine Coast to start a family. Despite being only in her mid-20s, Drake is brimming with experience: she began releasing music at the age of 16 and hasn’t stopped since. Drake’s life as a new mother only seems to strengthen her folk storytelling and lullaby melodies. From her new home on the coast, Drake has returned to a more stripped-down way of making her music: just her and her guitar, both more natural and more intimate. This new approach serves to emphasize her powerful voice, and, with vocals that are “full to the brim with emotion and intent” (FBi Radio), Drake’s lyricism shines through.

Citing influences such as Feist, Laura Marling, Sufjan Stevens, Kurt Viles, and Jose Gonzalez, Drake is a fresh voice in a sometimes formulaic landscape of singer-songwriters. Listening to her music over the years, there are nods to her folk influences, but Drake has continued to maintain and develop her own unique voice. Her songs are atmospheric and poignant, full of delicate daydreams and desire. Often described as youthful since her teenage debut, Angharad Drake is moving into her own. Her haunting lyrics balance the yearning of young love with honest introspection and a realness that’s hard to match, and her melodies are the kind that you find yourself humming in your own contemplative moods with all the bittersweet complexity that this assurance entails. - Elena Cremonese