FEATURE: Spotlight: Alice Costelloe

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Alice Costelloe

__________

AS Brighton’s The Great Escape…

is on between 13th and 16th May, I am doing Spotlight features around artists who are appearing on the bill. Or have appeared, as some will go out after the festival. An artist I have known about for years and am not sure why I have not spotlighted yet is Alice Costelloe. Perhaps a little late in spotlighting her, I feel she is an artist who does not have as much support and love as she deserves. She has a large fanbase, though there are stations who have not played her music. I feel she deserves bigger festival placings and much more airplay. Before getting to some interviews, this is what The Great Escape say in their biography:

“London based Alice Costelloe – formerly of critically acclaimed shoegaze duo Big Deal (Mute Records) and previously live bassist for Superfood began her solo endeavour at the end of September 2023.

In 2024 she signed to cult UK label Moshi Moshi Records and released her EP ‘When It’s The Time’. Her debut album ‘Move On With The Year’, produced by Mike Lindsay (Lump/Tuung) in his Margate studio released February 2026, is a break-away record consisting of 10 tracks of beguiling art-pop built on self- trust, instinct, and a necessary process of creative detangling”.

Her amazing debut album, Move on with the Year, was released in February. It is an extraordinary work that will stay in your heart and mind long after you hear it. It is worth noting how her has some great dates and festival appearances. I have never seen Alice Costelloe live, though I will try and catch her at a London date, as that is where I am based. Her slot at The Great Escape will earn her more focus and attention. The chance to hear songs from her debut album. I have loved her music for a while, so it is always pleasing when she gets recognition and bookings! This is an artist that everyone needs to know about.

There is so much to love and adore about Alice Costelloe. I especially love her voice. More than most other singers, she carries so many different emotions and layers. It is a beautiful voice, but there are these depths and characteristics that give her music such resonance and nuance! A phenomenal songwriter, we all need to shine a light on a supreme talent. One of very best artists in my view. In fact, I don’t think I will dip back that far, as most of the older interviews are from when she was with Big Deal. Instead, I will drop in two reviews for Move on with the Year. It might seem insulting to call Alice Costelloe a ‘rising’ artist. That is not what I am referring to her as. However, it is important to spotlight her, partly because she released her debut solo album. Also, because she is a gifted artist that should be celebrated more. I want to start with an interview from Karma Magazine. They say how “Move On With The Year is Alice Costelloe’s path to processing a tough past that until now was left in the shadows. In it, she faces the damage left by her father’s addiction and emotional absence head first— from the very beginning, Alice Costelloe refuses to comply with what is demanded…”:

“The 80s sound of the album caught my attention, which made me wonder about the artists that inspired her. Costelloe admitted that the 80s influence was more from Mike Lindsey’s production. Besides that, she cites Cate Le Bon, Weyes Blood, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Harry Nielsen: “I’d worked with Mike before, and I knew he had this whole kind of like treasure chest of amazing synths and all different things, it was sort of like this coming together of what I imagine in my head. Classic influences from those legend acts, and then bringing together this modern enough 80s sound that he’s really into. That’s a byproduct of our collaboration.”

While the title of the album Move On The Year evocates interpretations from the listener, Costelloe explained her perspective on the decision. “I felt like I was trying not to be too negative. When I was writing, I was thinking this is about progress as much as it is about engaging with difficult feelings and memories. It’s about engaging with them so you can get to the other side of them. Move On With The Year summed up that, and it was genuinely where I was at the time when I was recording it. I was going through lots of difficult things, and was just thinking, if I can get this album out, I can move on with the year.” She remembers turning towards music since she was a teenager as a way to move on.

When asked if what matters most to her is immortalising moments of the past or if it’s simply a necessary process to put them aside, she remarked that she never thought of music as immortalizing memories. “I was thinking more about just actually being yourself and being open with the world.” She feels that she spent a lot of her childhood and some of her adult years hiding different parts of herself. “For me, engaging with memories and writing them out for other people to see was a part of just trying to be okay with all the parts of myself and my past. If I put it all out there, then the world is going to see a 360 degree vision of who I am, and then that’s done, and I don’t have to deal with it.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Bex Aston

“This whole record, I wrote whatever came naturally,” she continues. “I’ve spent so many years resisting writing this record. I genuinely think I’ve been resisting since I was a teenager. When I started writing it, I thought I’m going to write the songs that come naturally. If I never put it out, it would also be fine.”

When asked which song can she recommend for the Karma! Magazine Playlist, she replied, “The track that’s coming out with the album next month is ‘Feet On The Sand,’ and that is, like, one of my favorites on the album. It’s never made sense as a proper single, but I do think it sums up the album and the sound of the album.”

Her songwriting is intriguing as well, with lyrics such as “My friends are dropping like flies” referring to people around her getting married. “It’s a really hard thing to put into words and to not sound bitter. I’m so happy for everyone and whatever choices my friends make. I do find it hard to square feminism and marriage and some of the associations that are still there with marriage. And I know people who are married in completely amazing equal relationships. It was more about the rituals around weddings that can feel a bit…”

When asked which color she or her music would be, she responded with pistachio green. “It’s the first color that came to mind, but that is just my favorite color.”

To end the interview, there is a quote by Costelloe that I was interested in, which is “The older I get, the more I understand it’s not healthy to be hiding or to be ashamed of parts of yourself.” I inquired of the album’s impact and reinforcement in that realization. “I think it’s something that I still struggle with. I’m sure lots of people have this with their work and their personal self, but I work in an Orthodox religious community, so I do really have to split myself every day and be super polite, not swear, and lots of other things. I come home and I have to remember I’m a musician, I’m creative, I can swear if I want”.

Two more interviews to cover off before wrapping up with some Move on with the Year reviews. One of the most emotionally open and raw albums. Though it is an album filled with beautiful moments. Let’s come to CLASH and their interview. They observe that “Move On With The Year’ is bold, brave, and hugely honest, a song cycle that filters through uncomfortable emotions and early life trauma to emerge emboldened, and refreshed. At times, it can be challenging, but Costelloe’s frankness – and gift for ear-worm melodies – means that it’s engaging at every turn”:

“Congrats on the new album which is a hugely impressive piece of work! How does it feel to share something as honest and personal as this?

Thank you! It feels both amazing and a little bit scary. I’ve spent a lot of my life being very private and only showing certain parts of myself, so it feels both liberating and a bit insane to reveal so much.

Much of the record deals with your father’s addiction issues, and the impact this had on you and your family. What made this the right time to confront those topics?

As I started writing the record I tried EMDR for the first time which massively helped me navigate everything me and my siblings had experienced dealing with an addict parent. It helped me to see my situation really differently, I could see the impact all of this had had on my life, but I understood that it didn’t have to define me or the rest of my life, and for the first time I could be more objective. At the same time my dad was becoming less and less in touch with reality to the point where I knew he’d never hear the record and I think that made me feel freer to write it.

‘Damned If You Do’ feels incredibly honest – what was it like to record that one?

It is I think one of the more upbeat songs on the album so it was actually more fun than most to record! Me and Jono Helsby my drummer had worked a lot on getting the groove of the song locked in so it felt really instinctive when we tracked the bass and drums together. But I just couldn’t sing these vocals properly in the studio so we actually mixed in a lot of my demo vocals and so maybe that helped me to feel a bit less on show when we recorded.

When I was writing it, I was feeling creatively fulfilled in a way I hadn’t since I was a kid and it made me think about how much I’d hate this to have to change if I were to have a life with more serious grownup commitments! For me it’s always the big milestones in life that remind you of absence, so as I contemplated the possibilities of marriage and children, the subjects felt particularly complex for me as I was thinking about not only the way it might change my creative output but that these would also be milestones that would bring into focus the absence of my father.

What was the biggest challenge when making this record?

Learning that being productive all the time is not productive! When I first started working on the album I was super disciplined about writing and demoing daily, but repeatedly found myself getting stuck and burnt out. Once I realised that you can’t endlessly mine your creativity without also feeding it with good things – music, art, nature, friends (whatever fills your cup) – I changed my approach and found I could write much better and easier if I regularly took myself on little adventures. I explored London as if I was a tourist, and went to more exhibitions that year than I probably have in my whole life, it really helped to be absorbed in something other than music. Taking in all the amazing culture and vitality of the city inspired me to keep going.

A number of live shows are upcoming – are you looking to seeing how these songs translate in the live environment?

I’m really looking forward to playing the album live. For the tour this Spring we’re going to play the album tracks in order from start to finish. It’s going to be an interesting experiment and I think requires quite a lot of patience and kindness from the audience, as some of these songs are very slow and very quiet and some might say quite sad. In a world where our attention is strained and shifting all the time, asking people to engage with a whole album is a lot, but I believe in music lovers, and if it works, I think these shows are going to be extra special.

What’s next for you?

We start our little UK tour at the end of this month, and then it’s quite a hectic year with festivals and another headline tour in October, but all exciting things ahead! Having spent so many weeks by myself writing and demoing this heavy record, I’d love to spend some time this year working collaboratively on something lighter with someone whose work I admire. I think I need a breather from being exclusively stuck inside my own head and experiencing someone else’s approach and perspectives would be a welcome relief!”.

I will get to DIY’s review of Move on with the Year, though I first want to come to their interview from February. I can imagine it would have been tough instantly transitioning from playing in bands to going solo. The dynamic is different. Being used to sharing the stage and studio with bandmates, doing things on her own must have been scary as well as liberating. If you are a solo artist, then everything is on you. However, being solo also means Alice Costelloe can let her voice and words take charge. She can be very honest and personal, rather than have to share credit or sing songs that don’t feel true to her:

“Making ‘Move On With the Year’ became a period of growth in more ways than one. Coming from a hefty family of creatives (including fashion designer Bella Freud and painter Lucien Freud) meant there was an unspoken pressure to succeed. At the same time, her musical touchstones were largely male, shaping a narrow idea of what an album should be: a grand, capital-C Concept filled with oversized ideas and lyrics. So when it came to her own attempt, she tried to fit that mould: “I wrote some awful songs about London and Greek mythology,” she chuckles. “I had this weird idea that I wasn’t enough and I needed to make it somehow grander, lyrically. I hope no one ever hears the songs I wrote before figuring out what to make this album about. It was like someone posturing on what an album should be.”

When she finally figured out why she’d been struggling, it all made sense. “I’d been comparing myself to these men that weren’t really relevant to my life, even though I love the music they make,” she says. The breakthrough came when she stopped trying to impress anyone, instead choosing to let everything out and writing directly from how she felt. “I’d just said: ‘whatever happens, that’s what this record is going to be’.” That shift produced ‘Anywhere Else’, the album’s opening track. “Once I’d got that down, everything else just came from there.”

From there, the record took shape quickly, and it soon became clear that it was more than just a debut album. Instead, it formed a patchwork of childhood memories, shaped by the experience of growing up with a father living with addiction. While EMDR therapy had already helped her process much of it, writing the record allowed her to revisit those memories with distance, bridging the gap between memory and acceptance. “It was about exploring it to the nth degree so I could kind of let it go. I would have never been able to get this record down if I had been finding it as heavy as I had in previous years,” she reflects.

This mindset filters through the record’s lyrics. Take the self-affirmation in ‘How Can I?’ or the album’s final moments, where she quietly announces her departure: “I’ve already done my time / I’m going to walk into the garden / And say my last goodbye”. Slowly but surely, the album became less about individual moments of pain and more about the collective process of letting go and moving on. She realised that while she couldn’t change the past, she could change how she thought about it. She explains: “I didn’t want it to be like a ‘screw you’, like, ‘hate you’. I was coming from a place of ‘I just need to be okay and move past this’.”

At the same time, she began widening her musical frame of reference. “I was consciously listening to albums by women. Cate Le Bon, Weyes Blood… I listened to Joni Mitchell for the first time! I thought: ‘What is going on, that I’ve got to be this age and not listened to a Joni Mitchell record all the way through?’” she exclaims. It was the first step to reducing her impostor syndrome. It also gave her permission to write smaller, quieter songs without feeling like she was being too “feminine” or “vulnerable”.

Then came the instruments: “I’m just so sick of guitar,” she laughs, reflecting on the time. “I’m not bored of all guitar music; I’m bored of me and guitar.” Looking for a way out, she bought a £60 flute on Amazon and taught herself how to play it. It was another way of refusing the habits she’d fallen into. “I was like, ‘I can play a recorder, I’ll be able to play this’. A flute is actually so much harder to play than a recorder!” Encouraged by producer Mike Lindsey, the flute quickly became central to the record, appearing on every track.

The last thing she needed was confidence, a shift that happened in great part thanks to Mike. “He doesn’t need everything to be perfect, so I just instantly felt like it was okay that I play many things at a sort of average level,” she reflects fondly. “Honestly, it’s the first time I’ve not felt like an impostor in a studio.”

Thus, ‘Move On With the Year’ was born. What began as a practical attempt to get an album finished became a farewell to old habits, borrowed voices, and a lesson in self-belief. “As a result of trusting my instinct, things worked out really well”.

It is well worth reading DIY’s four-star review for the incredible Move on with the Year. I did recently publish a feature where I predicted a collection of albums that might well be shortlisted for the Mercury Prize later in the year. I would say that Alice Costelloe is also in with a shot. She thoroughly deserves to be among the dozen! I would not bet against that happening. Although it is a brief review, I think it is worth bringing in. This is what DIY say:

“While Alice Costelloe first stepped out as a solo artist back in 2024 with the soft, synthy EP ‘When It’s The Time’, for this full-length debut, the former Big Deal and Superfood member adds dashes of self-taught flute, recorder and organ to the mix beneath her husky vocal, all while lyrically retaining her lofty curiosity.

‘Move On With The Year’ marries sonic familiarity with emotional lyrical introspection, her often dainty but always dependable indie pop toying with minimalism while she expresses past wounds, emotional distance and long-avoided family scars. A huge step forward musically, as it would appear to be personally”.

Alice Costelloe is a queen that has released one of the great debut albums of this year. I do hope it is rewarded with award recognition! I am going to make a real effort to see her live, and I would love to interview her one day. I listen to Move on with the Year. It is so affecting! I can only wonder how challenging and upsetting it must have been writing some of the words and singing them in the studio. I feel that Costelloe’s songs will connect with other people who have been through similar things. I wonder if writing the album had a cathartic effect or helped her in some way.

I want to end with a review from Popmatters. They called Move on with the Year “refined, elegant art pop, in which her crystalline voice floats over a rich palette of electronic instrumentation with grace”. Alice Costelloe is truly special. If you are able to go and see her live, then make sure you do:

“The fact that the London-based singer-songwriter Alice Costelloe, the great-great-granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, is, on her debut album Move on With the Year, probing into her unconscious to conjure up memories of her estranged father might seem too on the nose or a send-up. Don’t worry, it isn’t either. Instead, it’s a gallant portrayal of a child of a parent battling substance abuse—in other words, it’s an indie pop record with a subject matter barely acknowledged, let alone expressed with such finesse and stoicism. Yet, despite the heaviness of its themes, you could be floating.

The post-war English poet Philip Larkin wrote, in his customary sardonic tone, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” In the next stanza of “This Be the Verse”, Larkin opens with a punchline to a joke that never existed: “But they were fucked up in their turn.” The specter of Move on With the Year is, of course, Costelloe’s absent father, who moves through the songs fucking her up, or, in her own words, “a vagabond haunting the night.” Yet, perhaps in realizing that he, in turn, was subjected to the errors of his parents, Costelloe doesn’t appear to be reproachful—if anything, compassionate.

It’s this acute sensitivity to the writing, along with not eschewing hard truths, that makes Move on With the Year a compelling and, more importantly, moving piece of work. Moreover, it never falls into the trappings of mawkishness—even when the content is direct and hits you with the sheer force of involuntary memories, which is what Move on With the Year is: a series of reverie-laden imagery set to supple and graceful indie-pop tunes.

To zero in on the lyrics would be to miss what makes Move on With the Year special: a perfectly executed, sophisticated pop record, complete with warm, analogue production. After disbanding the shoegaze duo Big Deal in 2016, Alice Costelloe released her debut EP in 2023, So Neurotic, and, a year later, followed it up with a second, When It’s the Time, produced by Mike Lindsay (one half of LUMP with Laura Marling), whose brilliant production on Move on With the Year accentuates the acoustic woodwinds, synths, Moog, mellotron, crunchy tambourines, rolling drums, and acoustic guitars.

Costelloe’s blithe vocals make you feel as if she has replayed these memories a thousand times: flipping the scenes as if by hand to find a new image, or a new meaning behind an image, and by doing so, the emotion attached to the image dissolves to leave her singing with aplomb like Cate Le Bon and Lael Neale.

The synth-washed opener, “Anywhere Else”, starts so slow that you can almost hear the thoughts of the singer running backwards to a time when innocence, perhaps, can be regained. By the end, the dream is over, and the singer is left with sadness and pain, indignation and desperation, a feeling that fate has dealt her the wrong cards. When the narrator receives a call from the hospital concerning her father, Alice Costelloe screams “Ahhhhhh”, bringing to mind Munch’s The Scream, an existential scream traveling the distance from adulthood to childhood to somewhere between reliving and living.

“How Can I” picks up where “Anywhere Else” left off: the hospital. However, it is about the narrator’s birth, when her father was absent. Musically, it begins with a punchy motorik snare, followed shortly thereafter by a pulsing synth, a recorder, and a tambourine.

Move on With the Year, written in 2024, is infused with stately pop arrangements that hint at an array of influences: 1990s alternative rock (as seen in the dreamlike, Spiritualized-like “Too Late Now”), 1970s soft rock, 1960s chamber pop, and, lastly, the girl groups of the 1960s. Halfway through Move On With The Year, “Damned If You Do” lifts the listener out of the past and into the present: a narrator witnesses friends’ weddings, all the while believing her father will not walk her down the aisle.

Writing in such a candid and direct manner is, firstly, brave; secondly, it can be difficult to pull off. Trauma isn’t interesting in and of itself, which is why many artists are right bores: they fail to look up from their wounds to see that everyone—including their deceased grandmother (god bless her soul)—is/was fucked, as Larkin jocosely highlights. However, Alice Costelloe is too self-aware to become self-indulgent—perhaps she has read Freud’s 1914 essay, On Narcissism.

“Of Course I Know”, the zenith of Move on With the Year, could be Cate Le Bon singing a ballad on Let It Be, complete with a spectral mellotron and a recorder solo. “If I Could Reach You”, the penultimate track, is by far the catchiest track onthe album, an earworm that will have dancing and crying, neither or both. Lastly, the dark wave “Is There Something (Goodbye)” isn’t a sanguine conclusion but a resolute goodbye, instead.

Move on With the Year is a work of refined, elegant art pop, rendered through stunning production, in which Alice Costelloe’s crystalline voice floats over a rich palette of electronic instrumentation with grace. In many ways, Costelloe has taken an intensely personal subject matter and transcended it, as if the real story—the only story, in fact—of the record is the music, which is to say she is a survivor. Although she cannot entirely lay the ghost of her father, the record isn’t a pyrrhic victory: by confronting the past, the present is lived and, possibly, embraced. If not, this album will make you dance. Sometimes that is enough”.

Even if I have known about Alice Costelloe as a band member and was aware of her solo work, I wanted to spotlight her now, as she plays at The Great Escape, and there has been this time since her debut album was released. A chance to let some dust settle in a way and look at this debut further from its release. I am so interested to see where she goes next and what her future music will sound like. Whether her next solo album will be similar to Move on with the Year. Alice Costelloe is…