heka

Photo by Sandra Ebert

Name, where are you from?
Francesca Brierley aka heka. From Torre di Buiano (a hill just outside Florence, Italy).

Describe your style in three words?
13 year-old boy?

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
Bon Iver at Edinburgh Playhouse in 2017. It was during the tour for '22, A Million', an album that completely changed my life when it came out. Justin Vernon was someone I’d admired throughout his career but with that record suddenly he was making music almost exactly the way I wanted to make mine and it felt like I’d found someone who really shared and understood all the ideas that had been going through my head at that time about playing with song structures, interspersing arrangements with sounds of different texture, forming a collage of samples and borrowing inspiration from a variety of genres; I felt an affinity with the themes he explored, his sensibility, and his musicality, as well as his aesthetic, and it was very powerful to experience that connection. It made me feel less alone and more courageous in my experimentation, inspiring the formulation of my own musical identity that was at that very time just firming up. So it was really special to see him perform these pieces that I’d been listening to on repeat for months at that point and had been such a point of connection and inspiration for me. And the live setup was amazing! So mesmerising and powerful. So much to learn from.

If you could be on the line up with any two artists in history?
Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone. To be in the green room when Nina Simone received the cigar and sausage on her rider (don’t know if this is a myth but would definitely wanna be there for it if it wasn’t. And perhaps get a cigar myself and join her heh). To sing a duet with Leonard Cohen and backing vocals on all of his songs and get to talk to him after the show. When I was in my early teens we had his 'Greatest Hits' record at home and I still remember listening to it over and over throughout the house. It was one of the most wonderful and inspiring things I’d ever heard. He remained an idol of mine and I think that on some level I really believed I would one day get to meet him. Alas. I guess we met in song in a way. Nina Simone was another whose music we always had playing around the house when I was younger. Both my parents loved her. Her music blows me away every time I listen to it, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. So in general and above all, I guess the reason to pick them would be to get to see these two giants of songwriting perform their beautiful songs live, which is something I’m gutted I’ll never actually get to do.

Which subcultures have influenced you?
I feel most connected to the DIY and Maker cultures, though I don’t know if I’m influenced by them or just recognise myself in them if that makes sense. I like hacking things, making things, fixing things. I’m an assiduous scavenger and am always on the lookout for stuff I can pick up and turn into whatever. A random piece of wood or glass, an old radio, magazines, records: I love the surprise and unassuming nature of the found object. I love the process of taking things apart, breaking them up into components and creating something new - which is ultimately a process at the basis of most creative endeavours like writing or making art I think. And it’s also what I bring to making music: I like to have an experimental, intuitive approach, and a playfulness that accentuate and reveal the human behind the sound. Other subculture influences include a generous amount of hippie, a little bit of hacker, some daydreaming about skater culture from afar. And Wiccan and UFO influence mainly from growing up and watching TV in the '90s lol.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
Maybe Basquiat. I love his paintings and would have loved to be in the room as he worked. He put together a band called Gray in 1979 so I guess I can nominate a song from them!

Of all the venues you’ve been to or played, which is your favourite?
Probably St. Pancras Old Church. First of all, singing in churches is, of course, wonderful because of the incredible acoustics. The minute the voice leaves your body it expands, balloons, and fills up the space like some thick vapour or liquid. I played there in November, opening a sold-out White Flowers concert and it was a really incredible experience. During soundcheck it felt like my voice might get away from me like some wild creature because the reverb was so powerful and pervasive, I couldn’t hear where a sound started and another began. Then as the people started piling in the sound adjusted to be exactly right; both effortless and powerful without feeling untameable. Another thing I loved about the venue was that the crowd was in complete darkness, so all I could see were the lovely smiling faces in the front row and only the silhouettes of people filling the nave of the church at the back, which made the whole experience oddly intimate despite the large number of people, and a lot more communal and peaceful.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?
Sibylle Baier, a German folk singer who between 1970 and 1973 recorded a series of simple yet wonderfully moving songs on a reel-to-reel tape machine. Instead of pursuing a music career, she moved to the US and concentrated on raising her family. In 2006, her son Robby compiled a CD from the recordings to give to friends and family. The CD was eventually passed on to the label Orange Twin, who decided to release it as a record called Colour Green. As the album has since become somewhat of a cult, Sibylle Baier may not qualify as an unsung heroine any longer, though she certainly was for more than thirty years! I just love this story and the album very much and thought I’d talk about it :) 

heka will perform at The Windmill, Brixton alongside Heartworms and Binti Red on 4th April 2022. Details and tickets can be found here.

For more on heka, including where to stream or purchase her latest track 'High Tide', as well links to all her social channels, visit linktr.ee/hekamusic.