You're playing three shows at The Great Escape so a big thank you for chatting to us! How's your festival been so far?

It's such good vibes. It's my first ever Great Escape which is wild because I grew up in Brighton, but when I was a teenager I was always too skint and then when I moved away for uni it was always exam time. So it's really nice to come and experience it as an artist. I've just seen some really great music already, like really world class shit, which The Great Escape is all about, I guess. It's like a really cool mix of bands that I know personally, because we share a scene, and then bands that are international, who are being sponsored to play here.

I read somewhere that you quit your job to pursue music and just wanted to say respect! How has the journey been?

It has been really great. I had a couple of years before quitting my job where I was just so uninspired. I felt so out of touch with my creativity because I wasn't doing any music at all. It just totally wasn't even an option. So I really ground myself into this path, which was really uncomfortable. I wasn't sure why it was so uncomfortable, until something clicked at a point and I realised that music is the only thing that I want to do with my life, which is so wild because it had been something that I pushed away so hard for so long.

It's been about a year and a half, and I've gone from wanting to be a fully independent DIY musician, to now working more towards a slightly different path in the music industry. It's been really exciting to live that change and learn through experience, learn a bunch of new stuff, meet a bunch of people, really integrate myself into different scenes that I wanted to connect with when I started. Because here I am now, like a year and a half after I started. I was like a fresh little baby and all I had was some folk songs on the internet to now playing alt-rock music to people that are into alt-rock and want to come and see me do it. It feels really surreal.

Your most recent studio release 'Precious' was released last summer. It's so vulnerable and beautiful. Can you talk us through the track?

It really speaks to settling into emotional space with somebody that doesn't feel new anymore. It doesn't feel so powerful in the way that very new relationships can where it's all consuming, but it does feel like this kind of grounded powerful which is more profound, I guess. It's a homage to a different kind of love.

That's so lovely. We caught you at the first Family Store Records in-store show and your music totally comes alive live, and really leans into post-rock. Can you talk about how it feels when you bring it all together with your band?

So the songs on Spotify, they were all recorded before I'd ever played live with the band before and of course, it makes such a big difference playing live with a band. There are some practical things you can do like go really quiet and then really, really loud, which is one of my favourite things to do in live shows. 

There's also a really profound emotional element as well, where you start building relationships with the people that you're playing with, and you start building arrangements with them. It's a really vulnerable thing to do, to let people into the songs that I write. I write the basic structures and lyrics and the melodies, but then I take it into a new space, and I open up to these people that are now like very big parts of my life. So when we play live together, it's a very emotional experience as well as a creative experience, because we're sharing this thing that we've built together

And you're right, it does lead way more into post-rock versions of my songs. And I love that! That's what live can do, it can bring another dimension or a new angle to music that exists in a  different kind of sonic space.

Your vocals and poetry are just divine. People hang on your words, and that's an impressive thing to do in a live space.

Well thanks! That means a lot because that's what I like when watching live music. I'm a big melody, lyric listener. I really lock into those elements and that's what I hope for people coming to our live shows, is that they have the opportunity to do that if they want to.

When you write, do you think about words to a melody or is it more like writing a poem?

It's a pretty symbiotic process but sometimes the words come first. I have a song called 'Machine' and all of those words came out at once, and then it was a case of fitting them to the ascending chromatic structure of the song. I've listened back to voice memos of it, and I was struggling so much, it was so hard to do. But often it happens at the same time, so I'll be playing something and singing something and the words will come out as they come out.

You grew up around Brighton, and I wondered what your thoughts are on TGE? What did you think when you were a kid and how has that changed? 

Well, this is my first Great Escape festival ever, which is wild. I was so conscious of it and I really wanted to go, but when I was a kid I was too skint. Then when I got older and went to university, it was always at exam time so I couldn't come back for it. So, it feels really exciting to be back here for the first time playing the festival. In no universe could I have imagined when I was like 16 years old that I would be playing a stage at The Great Escape - so many artists that I was so excited about that played this festival that graduated from this event. I'm just so happy to be here! I'm so grateful. 

That's awesome. What are you most looking forward to checking out this year? 

One of my favourite artists is playing called Daffo. They're playing at 8:15pm and we're playing at 9:15pm but I'm desperately going to try and get over there for 15 minutes and then sprint over to our venue. I recently started running again, so we'll see.

They write these incredible intricate songs with the kind of lyrics I love the most where you're always being surprised. One of the things that I respect the most in songwriting is when people can start a cliche and then flip it and totally blindside the listener. One of their most recent releases is called 'Absence Makes the Heart Grow', and the lyric is: "absence makes the heart grow / hungry and neglectful." It's so good. Its so difficult to find your foot in music like that. That's what I love about good lyricists. 

Catch Cordelia Gartside at Daltons on Wednesday 2 July playing a new series: SOUND // VISION : live post-rock + live abstract art