Suzannah Espie

“It’s sort of a confessional covering a particular point in my life,” said Suzannah Espie when describing her newest LP, Mothers Not Feeling Herself Today.

After becoming a mother four years ago, the alt-country pop starlet began to struggle with navigating the emotional rift she felt between life as a new mother and as an artist. Whilst never officially diagnosed with postnatal depression, Espie has described her struggle with feelings of guilt, fear and failure: “I realised that every day of my life was a fight with my darkest thoughts. I couldn’t go out into the world without feeling people were seeing me as a failure as a mother.”

During this period of her life, Espie eventually began to have some clarity and says she “decided to write about it almost before I talked about it”. Some would say this method is strange, but she says she simply felt “compelled to do it”.

Since Espie was writing the album while she was coming to terms with everything, she says it wasn’t particularly difficult to explore the emotions more deeply. “I wasn’t looking back on something that happened a long time ago. The hardest part was staying on track and not thinking about how it would be perceived, I felt strongly about writing certain things but worried about how it would come across,” she explained.

“I decided before I’d even written the songs that I wanted an emotional roller coaster ride coming across musically, with some of the songs being quite sparse and stripped back and other ones to have lush string arrangements,” said Espie. In order to achieve this and complement the lyrical content of the record, Espie invited her friend and fellow singer/songwriter Georgia Fields to create string arrangements for four of the tracks.

Since releasing the record, Espie has been both surprised and humbled by the responses she has received from other mothers who have gone through similar experiences in their life. “I had people come up to me at shows or send me messages telling me that I’ve put into words things that they’ve never been able or willing to admit to,” said Suzannah. “I really did think that I was alone in it, but it seems that’s not the case at all.” (JA)

Nov 12. Django Bar, 19 Marrickville Rd, Marrickville. $22.70+b.f. Tickets & Info: camelotlounge.com/django-bar/