Danish-born newcomer Winnie Raeder has shared her first new music of the year, ‘The End Of Me’.
The song is described as “the opening instalment of an extensive audio and visual project to be unveiled throughout the spring”.
Growing up in Aabenraa, a small town in Southern Denmark, as a teenager Winnie would write songs that served as a juxtaposition to her jokey, extraverted personality, all the time dreaming of leaving for Copenhagen.
“It felt like there was nobody like me in Aabenraa,” she explains. “Nobody knew anybody who was gay, and back then you didn’t really see it on TV either. When I finished school, I started working as a waitress to make some money, and my goal was to leave. I was ready to feel a sense of belonging.”
After a serious knee injury put pay to plans to head to ‘efterskole’ (a year-long residential school in Denmark) to pursue her passion for football, she remained hesitant to let others in on her musical talent. Eventually deciding to focus on songwriting at nineteen, she moved to London, soon after quitting the music course she’d signed up to and working as a barista while working out what to do next.
From there, after a conversation with two friends of a Putney coffee shop owner, she played some of her music to another person for the very first time. “They asked me if I would really give my songs away to somebody else,” she says. “I knew the answer was no.”
It took her months to finally come to the decision to go for it. “I turned a corner and realised I was scared,” she says. “Every day since then, I tell myself I can do it. I can feel I’m letting go.”
Her new project was written in her riverside studio in Copenhagen and recorded in Brixton with co-producer Beni Giles (Lianne La Havas, Kawala).
First taster ‘The End Of Me’ is a stunning introduction – a textured, enveloping love song, raw and emotional, fragile but emotionally resonant. Intimate in a way that little else ever truly manages, it’s easy to see why Winnie held on to her talent for so long, but all the more special for it.
“All of this actually happened when I was first dating my now-girlfriend,” she says. “She put on a record, and was in her own world, listening to this song she loved. I thought, fuck me, this person is beautiful. I felt like “you’ll be the end of me” was quite a beautiful and desperate way of saying there’s a lot at stake now.”
Rather than go the standard ‘new artist EP’ route, Winnie has instead accompanied her music with a visual counterpart, that upon completion will form one long-form piece.
“I wanted to create a visual world for these songs to exist in”, she explains, “and at the same time create a world that could exist on its own. It was important to me that the film would both tell a story but at the same time allow for interpretation. I think we live in a time where everything is moving so fast, everything is so easily accessible and interchangeable that we rarely invest a lot of time into one thing. If it’s doesn’t grab out attention right from the start, we skip it and move on. I think that’s quite scary. There’s a lot of beauty lost in that. I wanted to intentionally create a world where we’d use long shots, still moments and simplicity. Moments that demands your attention. That’s a place I find really interesting and exciting, I think there are many feelings to be found there, in the stillness.
“I tend to speak in feelings and shapes and textures when trying to communicate creative ideas and thoughts. The director, Rianne White, knew exactly how to translate that into film, and she understood exactly what I was trying to say. She functioned almost as a translator for my thoughts, and together we created this real tangible universe that prior to that just existed in my mind. It was so inspiring to work with her. I remember being on set and just getting really emotional. I am just very proud of what we’ve created.“
A new artist to get very excited about, you can check out ‘The End of Me’ below, alongside her upcoming UK dates.
April
20 The Troubadour, London
21 The Troubadour, London
26 Whelans, Dublin (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
28 King Tuts, Glasgow (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
29 Cluny, Newcastle (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
30 Deaf Institute, Manchester (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
May
1 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
3 Hare & Hounds, Birmingham (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
5 Brixton Electric, London (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
6 Thekla, Bristol (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
7 Chalk, Brighton (w/ Leif Vollebekk)
