Morris is a Rae-sing star

IT has been almost three years since Blackpool’s Rae Morris released her first single Don’t Go.

With her debut album Unguarded unleashed last week she has been documenting her journey through the music biz every step of the way – both in the stacks of images on her website and a series of Moleskine diaries.

“I’m a serial diary writer,” she says as she prepares to embark on the Eurotunnel ahead of a European tour.

“Every day there’s something else that’s new. Yesterday I saw my album on vinyl for the first time.

“I like to show people I’m really appreciative and grateful. I’m not taking anything for granted.”

And it looks like 2015 is going to be a big year for the corkscrew-haired 21-year-old. As well as her album finally seeing the light of day on the major label Atlantic, she was named on the BBC’s Sound Of 2015 longlist.

Perhaps all the waiting around has paid off.

“It does feel like it has been a long time,” she admits. “I’m so proud that I’ve taken my time and not rushed the album out. It will be nice to get it out there and see what people think. I keep forgetting that people are going to sit down and listen to it as a full thing.”

It was always her dream to make a full-length album, and she sees the series of six EPs that preceded it as a series of “stepping stones” to figure it out.

“I think it’s important that people can hear the progression,” she says. “I didn’t sit down and say: ‘I’m going to write a record with this message or concept’. I just started writing songs like a series of diary entries. I hope people can relate to them and understand those feelings you have when you’re growing up.”

The resulting album is dominated by Morris’s powerful voice – which has an impressive range, going from deep and sexy like Lorde or Marina Diamandis on moody album opener Skin, to the perfect pop stylings of Closer, to the slightly more experimental wordless expressions which open For You.

“A lot of songs I’m very attached to from the early days and playing live,” she says.

“I ended up putting out My God [originally on the Closer EP] on SoundCloud so people could hear it as it didn’t fit into the track listing.”

Producer Ariel Rechtshaid selected his 16 favourites from a 20-strong collection of demos Morris sent him before they began working together.

“We just recorded the songs naturally,” says Morris. “We didn’t want to overcomplicate things. He got in some amazing musicians and we focused on the songs.”

At the heart of each song is Morris’s piano, which she describes as both “my tool and my safety net”.

On Don’t Go it is front and central, just accompanying her voice, whereas on the poppier tracks it can be heard providing a house-style beat in the background.

During the sessions she hooked up with one of her earliest inspirations – Chris Martin of Coldplay.

“It was the most surreal thing,” she says. “I felt sick, I couldn’t believe what was happening!

“My brother introduced me to Coldplay – they were the first band where I registered songwriting and realised that before someone had written and performed the song it didn’t exist.”

Despite the series of EPs many listeners’ first introduction to Morris would have been on Bombay Bicycle Club’s latest album So Long, See You Tomorrow. She found the experience of adding vocals to lead single Luna inspiring.

“I used a whole other part of my voice that I hadn’t used before,” she says of her higher vocals on the track.

“It made me think I should write songs that use it a bit more. I owe it to Jack [Steadman, frontman and producer] for teaching me a bit more about myself!”

Having initially lived in Blackpool when she was first signed, Morris is now based in London and looking forward to the future.

“It feels like a relief to be back in the van with my band,” she says.

“Every little bit of downtime I’m going to do something creative and write on the road in the moments between touring. It’s really important to me to keep writing and document the travelling we do and the exciting places we see.”

Support from Fryars.