Going With The Feeling Of Wolfie
Wolves travel in packs. In fact, they depend on this pack as a social unit with which they do primarily all of their communicating and hunting. Wolves are curious creatures, mysterious. Wolves display little fear, for they protect those around them. A wolves howl is a wolves singing voice, it’s used to communicate and survive. Wolves, as we’re told in many stories and myths, dig a full moon.
And it’s early in the evening, a night ahead of a full moon that seated in front of me, I’m faced with a south London musician, by the name of Wolfie, supplementing the image that’s been conjured up through her name and her unique fusion of sound, this evening she’s coming to life. First she’s perched in a chair directly across from me, and slowly she gets up and slouches down in a more inviting, less rigid lounge chair across the room. Immediately enveloping the space, her presence is far from contrived, Wolfie is spiritual, she’s charming, and her quiet confidence is intriguing.
It is inevitable to assume that a name like Wolfie derives from a connection with the animal, yet ironically enough, her surname is actually Wolfie, and yet I wonder is she much like an alpha female wolf – assertive, aggressive and strong?“I am quite insular, I don’t really go out a lot. You will see me in certain places and I don’t really socialise very much. I stay with the same sort of people and the same faces, which is quite like a wolf pack I guess.”
An alpha female carries the pack’s genes, it’s identity but Wolfie uses her voice to create her own powerful and spiritual dialogue with the world around her.“It’s a therapy for me. There are very few people that I get very deep with but music is different. I find it quite hard to talk to people sometimes but when I am singing something to a bit of music or chord progression it flows very easily.”
Her sound is nearly impossible to define by one genre, but it’s a fusion of R&B, alternative electronica, with hints of hip-hop. She describes the inspiration for this blend and occasional contrast of sound by turning to influences that range far and wide, from heavy garage and grime to traditional reggae. “I grew up listening to what my mom and dad played, which was reggae and punk. It was a bit of a mix up. I have a big family, and it’s very male dominated. I was listening to really heavy grime, like Mc Vapour and early garage.” While tossing out names such as Bob Marley and MC Vapour, she seems to become more and more distracted by a weird energy, presumably induced by the coming full moon.
Wolves are mobile creatures, they travel by night and so at this point as dusk closes in, I wonder if I’ll see the space between the woman and the wolf. As she continues to open up about her family’s past and dig into the sources of her inspiration she recalls her family history – “On my mums side, my granddad is a Romani gypsy, so we don’t really know where we are from to be honest, but back in the day my family were in India and they travelled with these gypsies in the circus. A lot of them played instruments.” And just like those migrant creatures constantly traveling by foot in search of their survival, Wolfie becomes at one with her identity, a historical nomad.
You’ll be better than the seeds
Oftentimes in music, or any form of art for that matter, we’re encouraged to tell stories of our pasts and of perhaps distant or aged moments. Wolfie appears focused when she’s in touch with her present moment but it’s in that very moment, as she talks about her music, that Wolfie starts to define just truly what she believes is the essence of her sound. Here emerges another story, led by those feelings, that natural high, that’s evoked by another moment in time – “I was with someone for a certain amount of time, and I was smoking quite a lot of weed at this point. We were watching some shit about infinite having no end or beginning-mad documentary. I asked if I should roll a spliff, and then I thought you know what no, I am loving my life right now. I was in a really good energy and place with this person. That was how that song came about, love is all I need, your the only one for me, you’ll be better than the seeds.”
Wolfie’s sound has a psychedelic effect on a listener, simulating a natural euphoria induced by nothing but her vocal presence and the way she produces her music, it’s inspired by a sort of go-with-it kinda attitude and her creative process is far from forced. “‘I Be Ghost’ stemmed from me singing some craziness into the mic. Levi put it backwards and in a lower octave. It sounded really spooky. The idea of ‘I be Ghost’ is about sort of just ghosting people. Thats kind of what I did for a year and a half. I didn’t release any music for that time because I just wanted to sit down with my craft and think about what I wanted to do and what I wanted to release. That song just came from that little vocal additive.”
As our conversation draws to a close, our dialogue became more rapid, almost excited. Dusk continues to draw nearer and with with it, the full moon starts revealing itself. “It will all happen when it’s meant to. Right now we are really just going with the feeling.”
That feeling isn’t just about where she’s going with her music, but it’s also where she’s been going with the feeling of the day too. She addresses the sort of bogged down way she’d been feeling all week. Apparently it was due to the Taurus Moon, that prompted a search for comfort, warmth and stability. From these day-to-day and not so spectacular sensations for others, Wolfie gathers the inspiration for her music. “I didn’t want to drop ‘Drifting’ on a day that I was happy because it’s about being distant from someone. We dropped it on a day that I was feeling like shit to be honest. Because we truly go with the emotion and the feeling, its organic.”
As the wolf constantly roams the wild seeking survival in the present moment, looking neither forward or back, Wolfie is focused on the hunt of that moment in the present. “For now, we truly are focusing on making sure that what we are doing is a movement in getting out to as many people as possible. We are looking to drop some remixes and features, some videos soon. Early next year I think we are going to drop an EP. Of course I want to create an album and tour but thats all in due time.”
Wolves are most active at dawn or dusk, they are crepuscular, oftentimes disappearing in the daylight. A wolf is naturally drawn to an illuminated moon. “I love a full moon. My mum said that every time there was a full moon my great granddad wouldn’t leave the house.”
Wolfie’s sound is quite like a hallucinogen, in those raw snapshots I sense I’ve captured an essence of her intuitive emotion in this present moment and then I remind myself of one thing. Wolves are oftentimes seen as symbols of our unconscious minds on journey’s to discover, and as our conversation starts to draw to a close, I start to see that her journey is only just beginning and this as a moment, is just fleeting. “It will happen when its meant to. Right now we are really just going with the feeling.”
