Bido Lito! Magazine | Issue 116 | August 2021

offend anyone, but you just feel much less constricted,
or watched. So, you’re trying out lots of ideas, which is
liberating.”
It all started with Robert Wyatt. After meeting at
Moseley Folk Festival in 2017, a shared love of his music
led to them covering his Free Will and Testament together.
And then, like all the best friendships, things escalated
to trading mixtapes over wine, uncovering more mutual
influences and highlighting the artists they wanted to
draw on next, like Judee Sill and Virginia Astley.
While both are seasoned singer-songwriters
with plenty of releases behind them, the music they
have been working on for Wyndow takes a different
approach. It’s a tableau of restless, interlocking rhythms,
tightly orchestrated harmonies, haunting refrains, and
the lingering sensation of trying to stay afloat as time
marches ruthlessly by.
“One of the key sounds we kept coming back to
was the two voices singing in unison,” Laura says. “I’ve
always loved The Roches and was struck by those tight
harmonies, so I wanted to explore that.”
Not that either artist began the project knowing
what to expect. This wasn’t the kind of collaboration
where they could bounce ideas off each other in realtime.
Instead of holing up in a studio, they worked from
home: each experimenting with a section, adding layer
upon layer until one of them was happy with it before
sending it over to the other to build on.
By January, they had a first single, Take My Picture,
with its delicate, ethereal vocals and a spectral piano
melody burrowing its way into your head. Next came
Two Strong Legs, which, in the words of their Bandcamp,
is “a tune for whacked out worriers lifting weights in
the worry gym”. Finally, their latest release, Pulling On
A String, is just as stirring with its slight undertone of
dread set against mellifluous, almost fragile, harmonies.
When Laura and Lavinia discuss what went into
the songs, their dialogue is as careful and reciprocal as
the recording process itself. If one comes out with an
observation, she gently runs it by the other, giving her
the chance to add her own spin. And if one tries to say
something self-deprecating, she can count on being
told off. It comes across as a really supportive working
relationship, playing to both of their strengths. Laura
agrees: “I’ve really enjoyed being able to work with
another female, and one of the things I love about Vinnie
is that she’s so decisive. I struggle to come to decisions,
and she’s a no-mess kind of lady.”
You can tell that both are pretty intuitive about each
other’s tastes and creative approaches, but let’s not skim
over the amount of trust it must have taken to work
like this. With both musicians already established in
their solo careers, did it ever feel like a gamble to hand
over creative control to another person, even if only
temporarily? “There is an element of chance in sending
off something like a sketch, and then getting an angle
on it from Lavinia that I hadn’t even imagined being
possible,” Laura says. “But it meant we had the chance
to live with an idea and then craft a response, rather than
worrying about how people were going to play it live.”
Although they worked together to arrange the
songs, the songwriting was often a more solitary
process. Lavinia, for example, describes a song she found
herself writing in Italy, based on the memory of a man
who once lived in her dad’s basement. The lyrics became
a kind of ghost story inspired by the eerie image of him
out in the fields nearby. As well as this, she says, some
of the ideas came from “thinking about time passing,
and about mortality, and the way things come and go”.
Laura, meanwhile, focused on internal discourses and
minimalism.
“I didn’t realise this at the time, but looking back
at the lyrics, there seems to be a theme of how
introspective thoughts change when they’re externalised
and put against the outside world,” she says. “The initial
spark came from listening to Japanese environmental
music and Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi. I’m not sure that
it’s particularly obvious in the sound of the record now,
but it informed the feel of the early demos which were
sent back and forth and developed in their own ways.”
With so many influences lurking beneath the surface
of their work, did they mostly agree on the direction they
wanted their sound to take? Who called the shots? “I’m
quite disorganised, and Laura’s very organised,” Lavinia
begins. “Oh, don’t write that!” Laura interjects. “I’m rock
‘n’ roll, Vinnie. Don’t say I’m organised.” Lavinia counters:
“It’s actually more rock ‘n’ roll to be organised, because
it means you get shit done. That’s what’s brilliant about
you, Laura, you’ve got this analytical and very precise
way of looking at things. That’s the benefit of having
your capabilities and input: the precision. Total stickler for
detail, in a really good way.”
“But then when someone gives me options,” Laura
replies, “I run with them, and I can’t put that full stop
on things.” She goes on to recount a radio session they
once did together, where she would have agonised over
the final mix until dawn had it not been for Lavinia firmly
drawing a line under it. “Vinnie, you stop my twitches.”
By now, Zoom has rendered my voice tiny and faint,
Lavinia’s battery life has nosedived and Laura doesn’t
know how long she has until Eno’s incisors sever a
cable. As Lavinia mentions heading off to work on her
vegetable garden – plans she immediately dismisses as
“cliché and annoying” – Laura becomes captivated by
the tranquil bucolic existence being conjured up here.
We wrap up the call dreaming about huts in far-flung
locations, with Laura quizzing Lavinia on the brass tacks
of remote living.
As normality returns with all its promises of inperson
collaboration, Wyndow have no plans to call time
on the project. They’ve found a cadence that really works
for them, a back-and-forth of ideas that goes against the
grain of more traditional songwriting. There are plans for
a full-length album, a tour and, of course, some future
cameos on each other’s solo work.
But if the hut thing works out and both musicians
wind up in splendid woodland seclusion, disturbed
only by the occasional breeze rippling through the
bluebells, at least you know their music won’t take
a hit. Just pray for a strong internet connection
so that those fragments of songs can keep on
zipping through the ether. Wyndow have made
long distance work. !
Words: Orla Foster
Illustration: Rosa Brown / @rosa.illo
Wyndow is slated for release this
autumn.
FEATURE
“There seems to
be a theme of how
introspective thoughts
change when they’re
externalised and
put against the
outside world”
23