Kicking up a musical storm – Miranda Quammie launches Tempest

Photograph: © Miranda Quammie

After years of experimenting with her sound in the studio, local singer and songwriter, Miranda Quammie, is set to release her début album Tempest on 3 December. To celebrate the launch, she’ll be performing at Old St. Mary’s Church in Stoke Newington on 23 November.

Her folk and classical influenced album explores many issues close to the singer, such as her mixed heritage and upbringing in two very different places – St Vincent and Stoke Newington.

“Being mixed race but largely brought up here (though a bit abroad as well) has created something of a tension in my identity,” she reveals.

“For a long time there seemed to be this message that I couldn’t be ‘English’ because of how I look and because of where my father is from. I was allowed to be British, but not English. A lot of this album is really about my view of Englishness and claiming my own Englishness to some extent.

I wrote a song on the album, ‘The Apprentice Strain’, as a kind of meditation on this duality. Half the song is about here, the other half is about St Vincent – and I’m somewhere in between.”

Her love of literature, history and classics also inspired her story-telling lyrics, which convey themes of childhood innocence, the search for one’s identity and the power of legend.

“There are classical themes on this album. The title track of the album is in part about the end of the Trojan War and the album track ‘Latin Song’ is my retelling of the story of Dido and Aeneas to a somewhat Latin beat,” she explains.

“On a couple of songs (‘Midnight Garden’ and ‘The Snow Goose’), I’m influenced by classic children’s literature and on another (‘Song for a Dark Queen’) I sing from the imagined perspective of Boudicca.”

Her song ‘Midnight Garden’ takes as its inspiration one of Miranda’s favourite childhood books, Tom’s Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce.

“The book is so compelling for me because it really captures that different view of reality that children can have, one that’s infused with magic and possibility, but then the way that can be flattened and fractured with the onset of growing up. That’s what inspired me and what I’ve tried to put across in my song.”

Miranda grew up listening to the jazz music her parents played at home, but she admits it was the music of Mos Def and Kate Bush that influenced and shaped the artist she is today – and the sound of her new album, adding: “Mos Def and Kate Bush awakened me and impressed me with how much power there can be in exploring and expressing your own identity and its complexity through song writing.”

Tempest album launch
Friday 23 November 1012
Old St Mary’s Church
Stoke Newington Church Street
Hackney
N16 9ES

Doors: 7.30pm
Entry: £5, £3 concessions

The album is on sale at Miranda Quammie Music  from 3 December.