FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Brooke Combe

FEATURE:

Spotlight: Revisited

Brooke Combe

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A truly special…

artist who I spotlighted back in 2023. Brooke Combe released Dancing at the End of the World last year. It is a brilliant album. In terms of singles, How Can I Tell You? (To Love Me More) and Tears Won’t Lie have come out this/last year. Combe has a string of U.K. dates ahead, including slots at Camp Bestival in July and August. There are some international dates afterwards. I want to get to some fairly recent interview with Brooke Combe to give you a sense of why she is so amazing and should be followed. I have never seen Brooke Combe live, though I will correct that soon enough. The interviews I am coming to are from last year. However, as Combe has released new music, I am sure there will be other interviews coming. Prior to coming to them, here is some background to a truly spectacular musician: “Scottish soul singer Brooke Combe is best known for her breakthrough debut album, Dancing at the Edge of the World and her latest release, How Can I Tell You? (To Love Me More). Her music traces a journey from small-town Midlothian to the forefront of British soul, driven by a lifelong passion for sound rooted in Motown and early musical experimentation. With a magnetic voice and candid storytelling, Combe has risen from posting anonymous online covers to opening for major artists, all while navigating heartbreak, identity, and the pressures of rapid success. Her work confronts resilience, heritage, and self-discovery with striking honesty, shaped by her experiences growing up as one of the few Black faces in a predominantly white Scottish community”.

Naturally, there was a lot of interest around Brooke Combe last year when Dancing at the Edge of the World was released. I do want to take us back to last year and a couple of interviews around that album. CLASH spoke with an artist who puts all her emotions out there. Dancing at the Edge of the World is an “absolute stormer – vintage styled soul that feels totally refreshing, Brooke Combe isn’t satisfied with retreading old ground, instead finding her own unique place within an R&B lineage”:

“This album feels like a reintroduction for you – when did work begin on it? Did you know what you wanted to achieve from the outset?

I think when I parted ways with Island Records, the album pretty much wrote itself. For months prior to this, I was so in my own head, being sent to various songwriting sessions with amazing credible producers and songwriters really knocked a lot of my own confidence in my abilities, which instantly I knew was not a good feeling.

I had a couple of old ideas from like five years ago on my phone that ended up on the album. We probably made a conscious start to the album in about 2022 though.

How does songwriting work for you? Do you tend to get ideas down quickly, or is it laboured? What’s the root of it all, do you think?

I’m not usually someone that has the ability to say, “okay right, I’m gonna write about this specific idea I’ve got”, I’m someone who needs to feel a feeling that makes me want to write. Or be moved by a chord structure. I’m trying to get better at the storytelling side of things now, however.

You’ve said Liverpool is like a second home for you! What is it about the city that you vibe with?

I vibe with a lot of things in this city. First of all, the people make me feel at home because they’re always merry and happy to help, like the Scots and they’re misunderstood, like the Scots too. The scran in the city is another thing… wow. There are some seriously good Mexican scrans which is my go-to. I love seeing the culture as well in Liverpool. That’s one of the things that made me feel at home more straight away. I’m from the outskirts of Edinburgh, and sometimes when I’m walking around I just feel like I stick out like a sore thumb due to lack of diversity.

There’s a lot of subtlety to the arrangements – the acoustic guitar on ‘Guilt’ or the organ on ’If I Could Only Be Yours’ – did you experiment in the studio? Or did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to achieve?

We were under a bit of a time constraint whilst making the album so really didn’t want to waste a lot of time trying lots of different ideas. So, the organ on ‘If I Could Only Be Yours’ we pretty much knew it would be that sort of sound because of our demo. Same with ‘Guilt’. Fun fact, when Danny and I went to LA, we worked with a guy called Paul Butler from The Bees, on ‘Guilt’. Paul actually inspired most of the direction of the album due to his arrangement of ‘Guilt’. We all really liked the style and sound so decided to go with that.

How do you feel now the album is complete? The feedback from fans and critics has been amazing!

I’m so happy it’s finally out! It’s been a really long time coming for me. I’m sure the fans would agree. It’s nice to now sit in my lane comfortably and know what it is as a whole. Whereas my previous mixtape was just a load of unreleased songs I’d recorded really… there was no theme or coherency to it. It didn’t sum me up correctly. Well, it did for the time being but now we’re evolving”.

Prior to coming more up-to-date, The Line of Best Fit were in the company of Brooke Combe last year. Championing this rising artist (whether she would like to be referred to as such?), she is steering away from that ‘Indie’ tag that was applied to her earlier in her career. Dancing at the Edge of the World is her embracing Soul. “Raised on her grandparents’ collection of classic Motown albums, as well as the ‘90s neo-soul and R&B loved by her mum and dad”, Coombe was adding her own touch and voice to those influence, though not departing too much from that pure and classic Soul sound:

“This album has been written from someone else’s perspective,” she explains. “It's less about me and what I'm going through, and more about what somebody else, who I love, has been going through.” Writing in this different way has given her “a totally different frame of mind,” she says. “To be honest, I'm quite happy in my life at the minute, so I'm glad it wasn't a heartbreak album again.”

The recording, too, was done in a completely different way to Black is the New Gold. This time she worked with a live band in the studio and recorded to tape, allowing themselves just three takes for each song. “We only had two or three full weeks to do the album, so time was really of the essence,” she says. “For a while we were also hemming and hawing on getting strings for the record. They’re quite expensive, but for my first sort-of-debut album, I wouldn't have had it any other way.”

Another standout moment, “Lanewood Pines” feels the furthest from the indie-veering sound of Combe’s earlier releases, and celebrates youth, love, and fun as opposed to the darker, pleading themes veined through Black is the New Gold. Written in less than 20 minutes, together with Murphy, the song is named after the apartment complex where the two were staying while in Los Angeles for songwriting sessions after performing at SXSW in 2023.

“One of the producers phoned us one day and said, ‘Would you mind coming to the studio a little bit later today?” says Combe, explaining how they used the extra time to write something new for the session. “I remember it so clearly! Danny was sitting on the couch and started playing these chords and I heard this melody, so I pulled up a little keyboard on my phone and tried to find it. Once I’d figured that out, the words came to me instantly. It reminded me of that feeling when you've had a boss night out and you're with somebody you love, and then you part ways and you're just lying in your bed, buzzing about the night, and you just want to speak to them on the phone about it.”

Dancing at the Edge of the World feels like a massive step forward in confidence for Combe, and she attributes that partly to her experience of touring with Miles Kane, who she describes as “really charismatic and a good frontman.” “My confidence was through the roof afterwards,” she says. Her indie roots haven’t been completely discarded though. Last year, she featured on Courteneers’ melodic album opener “Sweet Surrender” after receiving a last-minute call from Skelly who was producing the record. “I just said ‘I’ll be there in 10 minutes,’ and it was very in-and-out,” she says. “Honestly, I was done within 30 minutes.”

She’s also a fan of rising Liverpool indie-pop band Keyside, who featured on the playlist of songs she’d listen to during the making of Dancing at the Edge of the World. Other artists in the mix were Michael Kiwanuka and Raye (“she’s smashing it”), The Beatles, and Sabrina Carpenter. “People probably wouldn’t think that I’d be really into her, but I can’t deny it. She’s just too catchy!”

Perhaps it’s not so surprising. Combe has a similarly irresistible charm, it seems, and it’s that fizzing energy that she’s bringing with her into 2025 and to the rollout of Dancing at the Edge of the World. “We're going full throttle,” she says. “So tell your mates, tell your grandparents, tell your aunties and uncles, the lot”.

Tears Won’t Lie is a phenomenal track. I wonder whether it will form part of an upcoming E.P. or album. Such a consistently remarkable artist whose music stays in the mind and heart, CLASH highlighted the track earlier this month. Since I spotlighted Brooke Combe a couple of years ago, she has done so much and has risen from this newcomer or promising artist to someone firmly established. A true great who I think we will be hearing about for a very long time:

“The singer takes soulful tropes from the 60s and 70s and interprets from a fresh angle, with Brooke’s debut album ‘Dancing At The Edge Of The World’ winning huge acclaim last year.

Embraced by the Northern Soul scene – her seven inch releases now fetch tidy sums on Discogs – Brooke Combe heads out on tour this week.

Playing London’s KOKO venue, she’ll then link with fellow modern soul figure Jalen N’Gonda for a series of European support dates.

New single ‘Tears Won’t Lie’ contains a scorching vocal, with Brooke seeming to bite down on the visceral meaning of each word.

Produced by The Coral’s James Skelly at Kempston Studios in Liverpool, ‘Tears Won’t Lie’ is another sign of her irresistibly soulful flair.

Brooke comments…

“’Tears Won’t Lie’ is a song that explores the truth that surfaces after a relationship falls apart. It’s about someone who has spent years hiding their pain behind a smile, only to be confronted with the emotional reality they can’t suppress anymore. Sort of like the moment grief, self-awareness and reality meet, and you’re suddenly awake and won’t lose yourself to love again”.

I may well write about Brooke Combe again later down the line. I wanted to revisit her music because she has put out new material and she has some exciting tour dates ahead. Someone you definitely should go and see if you can, Coombe is one of our brightest talents. Even if she is influenced by Soul greats and records she heard during her childhood and youth, she is a true original that will inspire other artists coming through. When it comes to the incredible Brooke Combe, it is clear that there is nobody quite…