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Written and shaped across years of live experimentation and movement between continents; through bursts of work and heightened inspiration, long pauses, uncertain health, changing homes and the gradual process of learning how to build a sound world from a portable studio setup.
inWaves developed during a period when speaking, and even breathing, felt fragile for Selkie, and returning to sound became a way of rebuilding trust in voice and body. Sitting at the piano each day developed into a quiet, grounding practice, one that drew Selkie toward nature, ritual, and the slow unfolding of songs.
Over time, these early sketches expanded into a broader body of work shaped by place: from a piano in Glasgow to bedroom studios in Berlin and onto stages across Japan, Her songs favour restraint and openness, allowing space for ambiguity and emotional resonance. This is music that sits alongside artists like Julianna Barwick, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Ana Roxane, musicians who understand the importance of space in song.
"The EP is about trying to stay open inside uncertainty, noticing beauty while you’re still in it, and allowing things to arrive, disappear and come back without forcing them into shape," says Selkie of the music. "Some of these songs disappeared for months or years before I understood what they were, and many only found their form through being performed live. They taught me that flow isn’t always something you chase or control. Sometimes it comes from staying close to what’s moving, even quietly, and letting presence open little doors you couldn’t have forced open."
The EP follows Selkie’s recent singles "Hours", "Heartspeak" and "Gold", each opening a different doorway into the world of inWaves, each taking the approach that instead of chapters of life having a full stop, we can find clarity without defined closure.
“Hours" is a layered and atmospheric track that switches between frantic beats and a measured pulsing about maintaining connection across time zones and continents, while ‘Heartspeak’ offers a softer side of Selkie, built around unhurried minimalism, bell-toned synths, reverbed and pitch-shifted vocals. ‘Gold,’ the final single before the EP, is a guitar-led song inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, carrying the mantra ‘we begin again’ through choral harmonies, light-filled imagery, spidery guitar lines and shimmering electronic beauty.
"Hours is one of the clearest examples of why the EP is called inWaves," explains Selkie. "It began in 2019 as a reflection on a long-distance relationship, holding the hope and ache of time stretched across oceans. Then the world shifted and the song started to mean something else: how we keep connection alive when distance becomes part of everyday life. It went through many stops, starts and versions over the years, At its heart, it’s about trying to hold onto closeness."
Of the unreleased tracks, the EP starts with the expansive "Dream Wheels"; a recording of waves lapping at a shore gives way to glimmering layers of ambient sound, an immersion in Selkie's world before wordless vocals eventually appear. "I wanted it to feel like entering the world of the record before language fully arrives," says Selkie. "It began as an exercise in experimentation during a period when I felt particularly lifeless and far away from myself. I then realised it was something I could shape through live performance. I started improvising with the loops, effects and vocals until it felt like it had found its own form."
inWaves ends with "Lick The Sun", a small celebration of reawakening rich with beats, treated guitar and spectral vocals. "I wrote it as I was coming out of a long, dark Scottish winter. It has the feeling of reaching toward light, of energy beginning to stir inside you again, of a little fire growing in your belly. It carries the appetite to keep noticing, moving, wanting, feeling, and being alive."
BIO
Selkie is a Scottish musician and producer creating voice-led ambient pop and electronic folk, built around electric guitar and atmospheric vocal-based sound design. Her work is spacious and unhurried, using the voice as both melodic and textural presence.
Named after the mythical seal-folk who lose their voices when kept from the sea, the project took shape during a period when speaking, and even breathing, felt fragile, and returning to sound became a way of rebuilding trust in voice and body. Sitting at the piano each day developed into a quiet, grounding practice, one that drew Selkie toward nature, ritual, and the slow unfolding of songs.
Over time, these early sketches expanded into a broader body of work. From moving between public pianos around Glasgow to bedroom studios in Berlin and onto international stages, Selkie’s music has grown through movement and place.
inWaves is out 28 August.
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