Ahead of ‘Wearing All White Like An Angel’, the Devon-born songwriter talks contradiction, losing her words, and why she left her vocals untouched.

isn’t tuning anything. Not her vocals, which she left alone across her new EP. Not the contradictions that run through it, light against dark, fragility against its opposite. And not the line she has carried since the start: a happy girl making sad music.

‘Wearing All White Like An Angel’ arrives on 9 October via Black Butter, five songs that open on the lullaby-like ‘creek water’ and pass through the drum n bass of ‘sickofmyself’ before settling on the title track. It was shaped in sessions with Bob Mackenzie, whose instinct for recording in the room rather than perfecting on the screen changed how she works.

On a video call a week before release, she is warm, unguarded, and quick to apologise when an answer won’t come. It turns out to be the most honest way the conversation could have gone.

The title suggests purity, but the music sits in the dark. Is ‘Wearing All White Like An Angel’ sincere, ironic, or somewhere in between?

For me this project was about exploring the tension between two things, whether that’s light and darkness. I was interested in the tension between life and death. So it’s definitely all about contrasts. There are two sides to it: the darker songs like ‘tongue’, ‘saysomething (bite)’ and ‘sickofmyself’, and the lighter ones like ‘creek water’ and ‘wearing all white’. They reflect how I was feeling at the time, and together they encompass all of what life’s about, both ends of the spectrum.

You’ve said you didn’t recognise yourself while making it. When did you first notice?

Probably in sessions, when I found myself being very judgemental of everything I was writing. For the first time in my life, writing wasn’t coming easy. It had always flowed. I didn’t recognise myself because that’s the one way I’ve always known how to communicate, and then I was getting into sessions with almost nothing to say.

So much of who you are is tied to the writing. What happens when that stalls?

A lot of my identity is tied up in my creative output. When that gets stunted, you start thinking, well, what am I if I can’t put it into words? I was quite avoidant of what I was really feeling. Weirdly, now when I listen back I can hear exactly what I was trying to say. At the time I was just muddling through and getting words onto paper without knowing what they meant.

Does finishing it mean you know where you fit?

It’s very much step by step. I think I’ll be wandering this until the day I die. When I picture an adult, I picture myself in my 50s, and I’ll probably still be asking these questions then. That’s the nature of life. New things come up, and the world is changing too.

You’ve said you’re drawn to ugliness over pretty things. What does it give you?

Ugliness is real and raw, and I’m much more interested in genuine, authentic things. It’s about not being afraid to admit those ugly emotions. In music I’m drawn to slightly unconventional voices because there’s a tension to them that feels visceral. When everything is smooth and perfect, that isn’t a reflection of how everyday life is. If I see something pretty, I think, oh, that’s nice. If I see something disturbing or uncomfortable, it stays with me for a long time.

Plenty of artists now make rawness a style, rough on purpose. How do you feel about that?

I don’t really know yet. Everyone seems to be craving something real, and with AI and digital tools so within reach, it’s harder to make something that feels human. I leant into that more here, with no tuning on my vocals and full takes through a whole song. But I don’t think one is better than the other. There’s beauty in ultra-programmed, machine-like things, and sometimes the two sitting side by side is a really beautiful combination.

So processing isn’t the enemy?

If it lends itself to the creative decisions in a song, I’m 100% there. If it’s used across a whole song to cover things up, I’m less interested.

Was there a lyric that felt too exposed to release?

‘creek water’ and ‘wearing all white’ feel the most vulnerable. ‘creek water’ is an ode to my childhood home, about missing a place and time that no longer exists, which I was really feeling while making this. But the hardest one to put out was ‘saysomething (bite)’. It’s about my fear of where the world is heading, and feeling like I was becoming a robot and everyone around me was too. I was worried it was too dark, too depressing. Since putting it out, though, I’ve had conversations where I’ve realised that’s what we want to hear. I want to hear other people say what they truly feel, and if I’m feeling these things, surely others are too.

How did you decide where the EP is gentle and where it breaks?

It wasn’t a conscious decision, and that’s why it feels different to my last one. That one had a concept, a story, a through line. This is more: on this day I felt this thing, on that day I felt that thing. It’s five of my favourite songs from that time, and they make quite a bit of sense together because they’re an accurate picture of what I was thinking about. I like to leave people on a pensive note, so I put ‘wearing all white like an angel’ last, as a gentle, thoughtful cliffhanger.

What did you take from working with Bob Mackenzie?

We went back and forth on a lot of decisions. What he taught me is how to make a song feel alive in itself. For a long time I wanted everything precise and perfect, and I think that was hindering me. He focused on things being recorded in the room, and we barely tuned anything. I made a point of not tuning any vocals on the project. Now I listen back and the songs feel like living, breathing things.

Why Black Butter?

I just really like the team. I wasn’t thinking deeply about the overarching meaning. I make decisions from my gut, and from who I’m drawn to.

Does intimacy get harder to keep as the production grows?

For this project, the opposite. A lot of the vocals I recorded alone at home. In the studio I was overthinking my takes and wanting them perfect, and I could hear the overthinking when I played them back. So I thought, I’m going to sit on my bed, do this in the most intimate setting possible, and sing as if I’m singing someone to sleep. It got some of that intimacy back.

You call yourself a happy girl making sad music. Does the line help?

I originally said it as a joke. The more people I met in the industry, the more they said it sums me up. I’m a very silly person externally, but the music comes from a much more serious, internal place, and I want to give both their own space. People have told me they expected me to be serious and aloof, and that’s not the case at all. I’m a real open book. I’ll probably keep the line. It still feels accurate.

Your voice has been sampled by Don Toliver and Rema. What’s that like?

Completely surreal. I find any form of success hard to believe. I saw a vlog of people in Hollywood with one of the Don Toliver songs playing in the background and I thought, oh my God, that’s my voice. Something I recorded in my bedroom ended up on this huge album. I’m kind of in awe of it.

Saskia’s EP ‘Wearing All White Like An Angel’ is out on October 9th via Black Butter.