Working alongside longtime collaborator Mura Masa, the first draft of what would become 'Squish' left Gretel cold, with a tension between what she thought she wanted the album to be and what she actually needed it to be causing her to go back to square one and really carve out her sound – or as much as she could within the time.

"I've done a bunch of shows for Alex [Mura Masa] and guest vocals on his music and stuff; I have so much love for him and love being in his studio while he's editing. We worked on the album, but I was confused by my own references.

"I realised I had no confidence in myself as a writer or a producer because I thought he was better at all those things. It became clear that the only way I could trust myself as an artist was to jump off into the deep end, not know what the hell I'm doing, but do it anyway. That's what the record is; it's me figuring it out in real time."

Once she had strode out on her own, carrying with her some of the songs that make their way onto the record but also ready to write what would turn out to be five more album-worthy tracks, Gretel set about unlearning all the things that had got her here. While it might sound counterintuitive, it was necessary so that she could break out and discover the exact sound she wanted.

"I've always been the queen of references," she admits, "probably for the worse, actually." 

She continues, "On my second EP ['Head of the Love Club'], there was a lot of imitation of bands that I looked up to, but with this record, I was doing all this stuff live for the first time, so I was just so focused on it not sounding bad. In that way, it became kind of reference-less, or maybe more self-referential."

Drifting away from what she knows best ultimately set Gretel free, focusing on the messaging behind the songs rather than the most polished sonics. 

Tracks like 'The Perfect Body', an exploration of Gretel's past experience with eating disorders, or visceral reflection on impending doom 'Fire Blooming Trees' are set alight by Gretel's knife-edge delivery of lyrics that can split you in two, with the more natural, organic instrumentation simply highlighting that this is an album reflecting what it is to be human in the modern world.

The title itself takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to situations that could otherwise pull you under. Shared by the opening track, one which reverberates with a high BPM expectant energy that sets up a record just on the verge of ripping itself apart, 'Squish' is a soft-edged word that represents something much deeper.

"It's about putting things into a box that don't deserve to be – like, I'm a human being, how can you sum me up? How can you shove me into one album? There's too much to be said and too much that I want to do, so this is as much as I could get into one album; that's why every song is the maximum version of what it is."

There's sometimes an assumption that songwriting is a means of catharsis, of dealing with whatever trauma or pain you've grown through. When we ask Gretel if that was the case for this album, the answer is: "No."

"I wrote from a confused place. I just write whatever comes to mind, which means I've got no idea what I'm writing about until I finally listen back to what I've written two months later."

She adds, "Actually, what did help me understand myself was picking the track listing and seeing all these different aspects of what it is to be a young woman, seeing that I had successfully represented it as far as I could. I looked at it like, 'Yeah, that's pretty much who I am right now', for better or for worse."

Across the process, 'Squish' was never taken too seriously. Of course, Gretel wanted it to be the best it could be, but she was equally aware that this was the first step on what appeared to be a long and exciting career. In that way, any small mistakes or decisions that made their way onto the record that she would now change are nothing to worry about; "It can't be perfect, can it? Otherwise, it would be boring!"

Our chat with Gretel comes about a month before release day, which at the moment is nothing but a circled date on a calendar, with Gretel struggling to really quantify what putting an album out in an age of social media stardom and streaming supremacy really means. For an album this personal, to be beholden to a system that can be very superficial isn't quite a good fit for her.

When asked how she's feeling about the album coming out, she frankly answers: "I don't know."

"We've got to like, less than four weeks until the album, but I'm not sure anyone knows that. The more you're on social media, the less it seems like people care, but if you stay away and come back to a clump of messages, it feels like it's a huge deal."

She continues: "It absolutely is jarring. It's a weird thing: I can't write about anything other than whatever flows out of my consciousness when I'm putting pen to paper. But it's comforting to know that whatever I have to say on the matter is a part of culture, it's part of the conversation, so you know that it's worth having around and shouting about."

One of the other bonuses of having the first album written and ready to be set free is that it's allowed Gretel to focus on the next thing, whatever and whenever that may be. She lets slip that writing has occurred, so it would be rude of us not to ask at least a little something about it.

"It's going to be still the same thing, this album one kind of rawness," she hints, "but I can see myself reintroducing electronic elements; I was very stingy on synths in this album because I wanted to keep it as gritty and unpolished as possible.

"I'm just really interested to see what people's reactions are to this one, which ones connect the most. There's nothing more lovely than having someone who looks like you did at 13 connecting to a song you've written in the same way that I would have connected to a Wolf Alice song or a Nick Cave song."

That sense of connection is really at the heart of both 'Squish' and what Gretel hopes to achieve with this album cycle. She's an artist whose work only really comes to life in its most vivacious, animated way in sweaty rooms, blasted out of speakers to crowds of adoring Gretelheads (that's not an official term, btw, but we will accept royalties if it catches on).

That's why the album comes with a release-day show at the now-hallowed grounds of Hackney's Oslo, something of a cult favourite amongst the discerning music fan. 

"I'm very excited about that show," she says. "We've deliberately kept all the shows nice and intimate so you can see everyone's faces. It feels more personal that way. 

"You can see what works and what doesn't, and it's really helped me reveal what I want to continue on the next one – the most fun and electric and weird are the ones I'm going to chase in the next album."

It feels as though, now that she has got over the first and likely biggest hurdle of her career, nothing is standing in Gretel's way.

"I just want it to really connect with people and for people to hear themselves in the record. The reason I write is that I feel like there's this weird little hand inside reaching out and connecting to something. You can only hope that when you put pen to paper, you make other people feel that way too." ■

Taken from the May 2026 issue of Dork. Gretel's debut album 'Squish' is out now.