A collection of six songs recorded on reel-to-reel tape, the EP blends folk and lo-fi to create an intimate and introspective experience.
Photo: Matthew Robinson | Words: Otis Hayes
Yorkshire artist Natalie Wildgoose follows on from her debut EP, 2023's 'First Birdsongs', with her latest collection, 'Come Into The Garden'. Written on a multitude of pianos scattered throughout the Yorkshire Dales, and then recorded on an old reel-to-reel tape gifted by Wildgoose's grandfather, 'Come Into The Garden' generates a feeling of distance, the kind left by a good friend gone for a long while, where you know still that if you called them on the telephone they would pick up in an instant.
The opening 'Introduction' comes in at just under two minutes and immediately establishes the EP's ghostly presence. Grainy white noise is paired with the soft, rounded edges of the piano as Wildgoose's light and airy vocals settle like falling snow on the cold cobblestones of a quiet, tucked-away street. Single 'Blackberries' was derived from an adaptation of a traditional folk song called 'The Blackest Crow'. Slowly drifting like an early morning fog on a chilly summer's day, Wildgoose's vocals bring in the sun lightly warming the land as the morning begins, minimalistic finger-picked guitar walking us back and forth across the field between those pockets of warmth.
You feel as though you could stumble upon 'Come Into The Garden' covered in dust, concealed amongst the family photo albums in a box somewhere in your grandma's loft, the entirety of the EP expressing a real openness in its poignant and personal lyrics and completed by the texture of its recorded quality.
A fine blend of introspection and intimacy is expressed in this latest group of Wildgoose's songs. Paired with the recording's lo-fi quality, this gives the listener an experience close enough to sitting in the corner of a small room with a single window, a piano and a stool, quietly observing Wildgoose as she tinkers, moulds and forms each song. Closing with title track, 'Come Into The Garden', Wildgoose softly draws the EP to a close with tender melodies lingering above warm piano. Wildgoose said ahead of the EP's release: "This is also the oldest song on the EP, written in the late winter of 2023, and it's the one that I feel sets the mood for the whole collection. It is a song that calls people to go outside and spend time in nature. This is the stitch that will run through my writing for a long time to come."
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