4040Both Other and its predecessor, 2013’s The Minutes, were produced by Guy Sigsworth, whose pop career began
co-writing songs for Seal’s 1991 debut – including Crazy – and who’s since gone on to work with Björk, Madonna and
Britney Spears.
“I felt him on quite a human level,” Moyet explains of their fruitful relationship’s beginnings. “We’re not dissimilar.
We both have this complete core of self-belief that’s also coated in this inability to communicate very well. I noticed that,
when I fi rst met him, he couldn’t look at me. He’d be talking to me, but relating it all to the engineer.
“He didn’t seem in any way affected by my history,” she continues. “He was able to take me at face value, and very
quickly we understood that we could communicate with very few words. He didn’t edit me, and I didn’t edit him. The
way Guy and I work is very complementary: he might send me a track, and I wouldn’t listen to it before putting it into
record. I would write the song from improvisation, having no awareness of where the next chord was coming from. I’m
touching everything from instinct, and my words would be affected by the mood that I’d created.”Inbetween albums, Moyet has taken
up sculpture as a fresh creative outlet© Steve Gullickrecord. I would write the song from improvisation, having no awareness of where the next chord was coming from. I’m
touching everything from instinct, and my words would be affected by the mood that I’d created.”instead of praising a show, as she’d
intended, she blurted out “You dragged
that out a bit, didn’t you?”SCULPTING A NEW FUTURE
In recent years, fortunately, she’s coaxed
herself out of the house, and not only
to tour. Though formal education never
suited her, she’s started to study fi gurative
sculpture. “I left school pretty much
unqualifi ed,” she says. “I didn’t even have
an English exam. What I always wanted
to do was art, but I had no qualifi cations.”
Nowadays, she travels by train to
college, and speaks enthusiastically about
piece mould castings and modelling in
clay. “I’ve got one guy in my class I call
Diligent Dan. He’s fantastic. He’s one
of those people who will work really
carefully at everything. But that’s not
who I am. I could make a really fantastic
model and then fuck it all up by being
really slapdash. I did this portrait which
I thought was fantastic, but completely
fucked it when I moulded it.”
In the past, this might have stopped
Moyet sleeping, but though her inability
to focus continues to dog her, her new
hobby has brought her peace. “The thing
I like about art the most is
you can occupy yourself
however many hours,
and it’s the only time my
brain isn’t whirring about
anything else. I can lose
the circular thinking, the
concern I have constantly
that I’ve said the wrong
thing or behaved in the
wrong way.”
Quite apart from
informing her new
album, her personal diffi culties have also
made her especially sympathetic to others
who struggle to conform. An ambassador
for Diversity Role Models, her love of
Brighton is enhanced by its inclusivity, and
one song, The Rarest Birds, was inspired
by living in a place where “none of ushave to be scared about who we are.
They might kick our fucking teeth in, but
they can kick our teeth in and we’re going
to go out singing.”
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that
she’s also active on Twitter, whose
140-character rule suits
her self-proclaimed
inarticulacy. “People
say, ‘Let the trolls go’,
and I say, ‘You’ve got
no idea’. I have this
battle desire, and I love
it when people think
they can fl oor me with
words that don’t touch
me. A couple of songs
have been informed by
that on the album,” she
continues, pointing especially to Beautiful
Gun. “Being contacted by Americans who
are both completely right wing and hate
anything liberal, and yet would practically
weep if you discussed taking away their
guns. You’re frightening people smaller
than yourself, and yet you have to haveCP30.Feat_AlisonM.print.indd 40 07/06/2017 16:48