Thankfully, she wasn’t held back too long, releasing a steady stream of singles in 2019 that’d make up the ‘Imposter Syndrome’ EP, as well as collaboration with fellow newcomer 220 KID ‘Don’t Need Love’, which would go on to hit the Top 10 in April 2020, a pleasant surprise during lockdown.

Maybe, but it’s more like the fact it’s a huge dancefloor banger (hitting the radio at a time when everyone and their dog needed a proper pick me up), and is anchored by Gracey’s history of writing big bops for various chart-toppers. Her penmanship can be found on tracks by Raye, Rita Ora, and Olly Murs amongst countless others, thanks to her time at Xenomania. She says, “Every melody that’s ever come out my head is probably on that computer. Sometimes I just get an email being like, ‘Oh, this song’s come out, and you did that when you were 16. You did the two lines of the pre-chorus, so you’ve got a cut on that’. Right? Cool.”

Working at the pop factory responsible for endless hits for the likes of Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud, Sugababes, Pet Shop Boys, and Cher (TO NAME A FEW), taught her a thing or two about songwriting. While she says she wasn’t allowed near the lyrics (“I don’t think they wanted any more GCSE concepts”), she worked on melodies, after sneaking her way in through a girl band audition that she turned down to be a songwriter.

“It was a very odd first job. They have a whole team of people, and they would all do a separate part of the song. So if one, two, three writers did the melody on the track, and then they’d give it to another team of people that would do like lyrics and do a couple of lines each and then they’d give it to another person who would chop it up and rewrite the whole thing. To me, that being the first thing that you learn at 16 was just a bit of a trip.

Her latest single ‘99%’ was one of the first songs she wrote, and the one she’d build her own sound off after writing for other artists. “It was almost like a pillar for my projects. I used to go into sessions that I would put aside for writing for myself, and ‘99%’ was one of the songs that I would like play, so the first couple of singles I released were probably due to the people I was working with being inspired by those sounds. It’s really mad that it’s out now.”

So Gracey The Artist’s journey started with ‘99%’, and along the way, she found inspiration in other alt-pop artists like Sia and Lorde.

“’99%’ was kind of a moment where I could imagine where I would sit as an artist, and I think that came from other artists. I remember listening to ‘Chandelier’ by Sia when I was revising for my GCSEs, and I was like, oh, this girl is really cool because it’s kind of dark, weird pop, and love huge choruses as well. And then Lorde was another one, ‘Pure Heroine’ is one of my favourite ever albums, ‘Melodrama’ as well to be honest. I was inspired by other amazing female artists that came about around the time I was writing, and then I just fell into it. When you write a song and you find it really hard to imagine someone else singing it, that’s when you know it’s time to give it a go as an artist.”

The song appears on her mini-album (EP) ‘The Art Of Closure’, released late 2020; seven tracks that give us a peek into Gracey’s brand of sadbanger. Also featured are ‘Empty Love’ a duet with Australian singer-songwriter Ruel that was written about the social media rut she got into during her post-vocal-surgery downtime, disco-infused Alexander 23 pair-up ‘Like That’, and breakup anthems ‘Alone In My Room’ and ‘Don’t’.

Sadly, she’s not been able to get out and perform any of it properly yet, what with taking 2019 off for a vocal rest and 2020 for, err everything else rest. She did squeeze in one show at London’s Laylow early last year before having to resort to livestream performances and socially distanced gigs for the rest of 2020.

For now, she’ll be working on some more music in her room and on Zoom, and hoping the universe isn’t against her for the third year running. There are bops on the way – she says she wants to get us all dancing, even if it’s just in the kitchen, so watch out Sophie Ellis-Bextor – as well as some sad slowburners too.