Gia Ford: Tellin' stories

With her debut album 'Transparent Things', Gia Ford steps into the spotlight as a musical storyteller, weaving tales of outcasts and misfits. From serial killers to lonely housewives, she invites us into a world where fact and fiction blur. Check out our latest Hype playlist cover feature.

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.
Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

Gia Ford is a storyteller. Yes, also a musician, but at heart, she's more akin to a novelist than a diary keeper. This isn't just music from the perspective of a songwriter out to level scores and build narratives through music like they're tabloid pages. While the personal has a place, there's more to her than that. Instead, her upcoming debut album 'Transparent Things' features a gallery of carefully crafted portraits - outsiders from serial killers to lonely housewives - each existing in a world where fact and fiction blur.

As Gia gears up for the release of 'Transparent Things', she's juggling the usual pre-release preparations with some rather special collaborations. "I've dipped into London to rehearse for the Byrnes Night Green Man slot, where I'll guest on 'Girlfriend Is Better'," she shares. "A lot of musicians in one room. It'll be fun!" 

Byrnes Night - a celebration of both Robert Burns and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne - seems a pretty good place to find Gia Ford. Classic poetry, top drawer art-pop-slash-rock music - even the fact it's a mash-up of cultural icons plays into her versatility as a performer. 

'Transparent Things', even Gia has to admit, has been a long time coming, but its gestation wasn't a straightforward process. "I've had a few hurdles along the way," Ford confesses. "I collected most of the songs over about a year, bar a few old ones. But I never imagined I'd get to make a full-length album in the way that I have been able to, so in that sense, it's happened very quickly after the songs were gathered."