FEATURE: Spotlight: Revisited: Alex Amor

FEATURE:

Spotlight: Revisited

Alex Amor

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I first spotlighted…

the brilliant Alex Amor back in 2022. This was an artist I was so excited about. Her 2023 E.P. Super Sonic, is amazing. There followed a series of singles. Last year saw the release of Seeing Angels. This year has been perhaps her most productive since 2023. Some of her best work released. Aquamarine released earlier this month. An artist truly geared up for the next stage of her career. This Scottish-born artist is someone I think people should know and follow. There are not that many new chats since I published my Spotlight feature. However, it is wise to get to know Alex Amor and discover why she is such a special artist. I am going to come to a recent interview with Amor. However, I am going to go back to a couple of interviews. In 2020, NOTION asked Alex Amor about her musical firsts:

“First song you wrote?

I reckon I was around 11 when the songwriting curiosity kicked in. The first song I wrote, I never actually wrote down because the lyrics changed every time I sang it. It was called ‘Take me on a Trip’ and the highlight of the song’s short life span was performing it at my annual flute camp, at the end of the week talent show.

First CD you owned?

I can quite vividly remember pressing play on my baby pink CD player and rocking out to “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne. ‘Folklore’ by Nelly Furtado was the first CD I bought with pocket money.

First time you realised you wanted to be a musician?

I think there’s always been innate knowing there. Something pushing me from behind to pursue it. I used to pretend my mum and dad’s bed was a stage, singing with a hairbrush microphone to anyone who would listen. Maybe it was the first time I saw Corinne Bailey Rae in concert or my compulsion to take up the flute at 8 that gave it away. Music’s always been there from the beginning.

First gig you played?

It was in the Oran Mor in Glasgow. A converted church and actually a pretty nice venue in the city. I was 16 in school and hungry to perform live, rounding up everyone I knew to come. I actually sold the tickets out!

First time you wanted to give up?

I guess I’ve never really given up. I did stop taking music as seriously when I went to university to study textile design. I tried to do the whole normal life thing but it didn’t last long. Music was always there in the back of my mind even when I wasn’t doing it. I got a lot of life experience during those years that I still take inspiration from to this day so I don’t regret it at all. When I started fully committing to pursuing music, that was when things started to align.

First time you heard one of your songs playing somewhere?

On Radio 1! It was amazing to hear Phil Taggart play my debut single on his show”.

Prior to getting to some new press and an interview, there is a 2021 interview with Beats Per Minute, where Alex Amor discussed some of her favourite records. It gives us a bit of background and insight. If you have not connected with Alex Amor then make sure that you do:

“Kurt Vile – “Wakin On A Pretty Day”

[Matador; 2013]

One of my favourite songs of all time is “Wakin On A Pretty Day” from Kurt Vile’s Waking On A Pretty Daze record. I think I’ve listened to it well over a hundred times. It’s hard to articulate the impact his music and this particular song has had on my life. Apart from the casual wisdom he imparts on his listeners so effortlessly, Vile has a knack for easing you into a trance as his meditative-like beats move you along at a reliable and steady pace. His conversational charm is something I appreciate in music – it feels like I’m his friend listening in on his every day natter about life. Vile easily transcends his ‘indie rock’ genre and that’s why it’s fascinating. His music can free you from the mundanity of any moment while simultaneously giving you space to think.

Corinne Bailey Rae – Corinne Bailey Rae

[Capitol; 2006]

One of my favourite albums from childhood is Corinne Bailey Rae’s self-titled album. The songwriting on every song is nothing short of exquisite. I remember as a young girl getting lost in her world of calming vocals and raw production that perfectly complimented the music. It’s an album that pushes your emotions to either end of the scale – there’s moments of elation and then times of desperate longing and melancholy like on “Choux Pastry Heart”. I was 10 when I heard this record, daydreaming of what it was like to fall for a boy and perplexed at the emotional rollercoaster that is love.

Kali Uchis – Isolation

[Rinse/Virgin EMI; 2018]

Isolation is one of my favourite albums of the past five years. Kali Uchis has a way of shape shifting genres on every track yet manages to sound entirely like herself. I love artists that merge old with new and Uchis does just that. The track “After The Storm” seems to fit the current feeling of the moment too. Her feel good futuristic nostalgia is at its best on this track, where she motivates us not to give up even though “we’ve been struggling endless days.” Her unapologetic self love is infectious too, which is a thread throughout all of her music”.

The stunning Meet on the Moon was released in April. The Line of Best Fit covered this song. One of the most extraordinary that Alex Amor has released. Having followed her for years, it is amazing to see her grow. The material she has released this year is perhaps her best year:

“So I actually think it was the first song I wrote for the album”, the Scottish, Brighton-based singer-songwriter tells BEST FIT. Her home city of Glasgow played a pivotal part in the writing of the song. “Unfortunately my friend passed away a couple of months before, so I just needed to go home for a while,” she confesses. It was at this time that Amor committed to writing the music that she wanted.

Amor has signed to New York independent label VERO Music and today shares “Meet On the Moon”, an exciting first glimpse of the direction that this shift has taken her in: “I think when something really big happens in life and you're grieving, you think ‘I’m just going to make the music I’ve always wanted to make.’ Your perspective shifts, and I had been making music that I liked, but it was a little more surface level and a little more upbeat than the music I listen to.”

Lyrically, the song is an ode to friendship and a description of someone beautiful, a character that exists apart from everyone else. “She’s brighter than the northern star / When she smiles the whole world stops.” Amor croons the opening lines, her vocals enveloped in lush reverb. “This song kind of fell out the sky,” she says. It’s an homage to my friend and the mystical, magical female archetype. The moon is a big theme, it represents the divine feminine to me.” The centrality of the moon to the writing process is not restricted to the lyrical focus, but instead through the shimmering guitar lines and the wide open spaces created by the synths. This sound is one that evokes the cosmos, leaving the listener feeling detached and amongst the stars.

The writing of “Meet On The Moon” and her forthcoming album was one in which Amor could exercise some of the grief and loss she has felt, whilst also reckoning with love and friendship. The combination creates something beautiful and so delicately explicated: “It’s definitely a journey, a chronological journey. It’s about relationships through a more complex lens as they develop through your 20s.”

The complexity of relationships is condensed in simply surmised statements of love throughout “Meet On The Moon”. As the chorus soars, Amor sings: “How she had to say goodbye / Like an eagle she was born to fly / So just look up to the sky / Like a moon she was born to shine”. The killer line, “You’ll see her soon / When you meet again on the moon”, is reserved for the very final moments of the track: “I did toy with only having the chorus once and I wasn’t sure whether to have it twice and the outro was really random where the whole song is in major and then the song is ended in a minor chord.”

But that final part takes the song somewhere different. Rather than ending with a resolution, the listener is left to feel like they’re stepping up and onto the moon waiting to see where else that will take them. “I do hope that people will listen to this album and it can bring stuff up and help process those things. That was a huge mission of mine, a goal to try and help people process themselves.”

If “Meet On The Moon” is a demonstration of the emotional depth and musical intrigue of the rest of her upcoming album, then Alex Amor’s intentions are sure to be realised”.

Alex Amor has announced a debut album. Pop Scoop! spent some time with the wonderful Alex Amor. There will be a lot of new interest around her given that a debut album is coming. I do think that the next couple of years are going to be her biggest. I would not be surprised if Alex Amor was playing some headline sets. She is one of our most magnificent artists:

“It was a little pink CD player that kickstarted a lifelong love of music for Alex Amor. It came naturally, with no forced listening experiences imposed by her parents – the foundations of her musical education were firmly rooted in pure 2000s pop.

“I was listening to Nickelback,” she laughs, “and like KT Tunstall and Nelly Furtado and Avril Lavigne – I guess I was always really drawn to the girlies who were singer-songwriters.”

Despite this, her first foray into performing music came with classical training. Whilst growing up in Glasgow, she sang in several chamber choirs and became a dab hand on the flute.

“It was really the building blocks of learning the ins and outs of theory – I went to flute camp! It was called Tootie Fluties and so in the summer I’d just go off with all the flautists, which is where I started writing music.”

From those first tastes of the stage came a stint at Zizzi’s as a teenager (yes, you heard that right – the Italian restaurant chain).

“I’d just bring my guitar, my Roland amp and do covers – and I would busk in the city centre [Glasgow]. I remember when I did the Commonwealth Games and it was just so much better than the other days ‘cos all the tourists would just give you money.”

These opportunities gave Amor the confidence to go out and search for an agent who could give her the star treatment she desired.

“My first show, strangely, was the basement of Òran Mór, which is an amazing venue – so I don’t know what happened there! I sold like 60 tickets and everyone from school came. I did a few more shows after that and then I just decided to stop for three years – I think I got a boyfriend!”

After returning to music in her final year of university, Amor graduated from a textile design degree and moved to London after being picked up by a rapper online.

“He basically said: ‘Move to London and I’ll make you a star.’ It was so irresistible and charming, the way he said it, that I believed him. So I moved down with the caveat he’d get me a manager – which he did. He got me a manager who worked at Lidl – but then that manager ghosted me! So I was stuck and was a bit like, ‘What am I doing?’”

The aforementioned rapper who helped Amor settle down south is sadly no longer with us – and this isn’t the only loss she’s experienced since starting her musical career.

The complex grief that’s consumed her over the past few years, alongside a love of mythology and mysticism, has been a melting pot for creating some sweet melancholic music. The first single from “Heavenly Bodies”, “Meet On The Moon”, was written in the wake of losing a close friend and returning home to Glasgow. It’s a celestial, spacey tune that soars and stabs you with its sentimental lyrics of sisterhood.

Whilst she’s poured her heart out in earlier releases, these new tracks delve even deeper with a singer-songwriter sensibility.

“I went through a really difficult 2024. I’m neurodivergent and have always kind of struggled with mental health issues. I’ve always been a very deep introspective person and I guess that was coming out in the music but with like a pop sensibility, and now it’s just far more vulnerable. I think I just got to the point in my songwriting where I was finally able to translate all the darker stuff inside me and be able to give it the words it deserved.”

Having struggled with her own mental health, Amor uses her experiences to help others within her work. She is currently training to be a therapist part time, as well as working from home for a crisis helpline, spending her evenings engaging in counselling sessions and providing support for those in need.

“It’s been a really big learning curve – I honestly didn’t really know how to listen [before]. There’s a whole thing of learning how to actively listen and really tune into what someone else is saying. I definitely think my job has helped influence my writing, being constantly met with people struggling and suffering. I guess music is a way to alchemise that in a sense and to hear people’s stories of resilience and of how they deal with their own issues.”

Amor’s observant latest single “Icarus” is inspired by the frustrations of seeing a pattern of self-destruction and addiction throughout various men in her own life.

“I think I’ve had a lot of experience with men struggling with a sort of hedonism that feels good in the moment but then puts them on a downward spiral. Often women are the ones to try and save or heal and sometimes the best thing you can do is just walk away from that.”

It’s a raw track, not too dissimilar to the demo according to Amor, which leans into an ethereal americana sound with several references to the story of the same name. On the album, this love of storytelling leads into the song set directly afterwards.

With her debut to promote, Amor’s summer will be spent up and down the country playing various festivals, having kicked off the season at Sound City Liverpool where she appeared alongside artists like Jalen Ngonda, Brooke Combe, The Lilacs and The Rolling People”.

I shall leave things there. Go and spent time with the extraordinary Alex Amor. She is a phenomenal artist that everyone should embrace and follow. I feel that she is going to release a series of albums and perform for many more years to come. That is why I wanted to revisit…