Daisy Casemore says ‘Goodbye, Goodbye’ to Edinburgh in her next performance.

Daisy Casemore has well and truly established herself within Edinburgh’s musical and creative tapestry. Ahead of her upcoming gig, Goodbye, Goodbye, we sat down on an early Monday afternoon, discussing her journey and approach to music, and memories of Edinburgh, culminating in her farewell show. 

Photograph: @ejpuddington

As a musician, Daisy can be defined by thoughtfulness. This thoughtfulness manifests in care and interconnectedness throughout her body of work, from her song construction to her live gigs. She plays with a guitar, she indeed writes and sings songs, but need not be limited to the narrow conception of the singer-songwriter. Her music is eclectic, malleable, and that is the beauty of it– it is living and changing, and meant to be performed. 

The interconnectedness of Daisy’s music manifests referentially in tiny moments between her songs, maybe through the lick of a guitar, maybe through lyrics. The title of her next headline show, Goodbye, Goodbye, is taken from a lyric appearing on her song The Dog and The Bitch. It is apparent then that within Daisy’s interconnected world, no song, no lyric exists merely on its own. When discussing her approach to the complicated territory of genre and how she navigates herself within the musical canon, she reiterates this idea; ‘even the notes you play have existed for so long, so nothing is entirely new.’ Principally though–within the context of the ‘coconut tree’ that she’s falling out of–she hopes that she is making something new and interesting. 

We talk about what she has been listening to recently: this week, the cooing voice of Jessica Pratt. We chat about My New Band Believe, Black Country, New Road, English Teacher and Victory Land, the resurgence of pop, and whether post-punk is dead. She mentions how in the reaches of post-punk, there can be a tendency towards a masculine enclose of heavy guitar noise. Amongst this, a reach towards gentleness is something Daisy appreciates, such as that of Cameron Picton, with his prog-folk driven evolution from Black Midi into My New Band Believe. Amongst her dynamically eclectic music taste, the mighty figures of folk, the Joni Mitchells, the Leonard Cohens, claim a special place in her heart. 

With these musical giants in mind, we talked through Daisy’s own song construction, something hard to fully conceive or pin down. Daisy finds the space and liberty to write as she pleases by not forcing creativity, yet also not straying from working within restrictions. Daisy presents her song Angel as an example. Angel is a true beauty of a song, gently composed towards a beautifully imploring build. It was written as a part of an elective guitar course, taken during her year abroad at Georgetown University; the course, led by jazz guitarist Jay Hammond, guided Daisy beyond classical script guitar by leaning into embracing open, alternative tuning. From this experimentation, Angel was born. And, at Goodbye, Goodbye, the song will be accompanied with a full choir… need I say any more. 

Now just finished with her fourth year, Daisy studied English Literature here at Edinburgh. I wondered about how her studies converse with her lyricism. She noted that consuming literature and media is at the heart of her creative flow, constantly absorbing and filtering influences into her writing. Interestingly, beyond this, it’s the textual analysis within the study of literature that she identifies as key in her crafting. Daisy notes a desire for her songs’ reception to build from surface-level enjoyment into surrealist depths beneath the immediate visual images she conjures. ‘Surrealists were always writing about mouths, gross bodily things,’ she says, and so she realises her own emotional evocations through a similar kind of surrealist corporeality– with descriptions of ‘spit-stained sheets’. Amongst this kind of surrealism, there is a contrast in her lyricism that furthers the effect–cutting through with overtly indisputable meanings– for example, a declaration of love unshrouded by imagery–in the simple words, ‘I love you’. 

I wanted to hear about another balance in her songs–a balance founded on playfulness. At her recent intimate set at Beat Generation Records, she opened with The Itch, which, amongst the song’s moments of intensity, Daisy places intervals: three breaths, three imperatives of ‘talk talk talk’. Daisy, discussed her experimentation here, an onomatopoeic impulse of expression beyond the lyrical.

It’s something that cropped up in her interview with the (very) excellent London six-piece, Blue Bendy, via her creative hub D to Z Presents; beginning as a FreshAir Radio show, it has now grown to encompass interviews and music journalism, with the likes of Blue Bendy and Skydaddy, as well as facilitating gigs across the city. She recalls discussing with Blue Bendy the ‘urgh’ that begins their track Poke and how central this utterance is to the song. It is this kind of experimentation Daisy enjoys in her own music, ensuring to take the serious with a pinch of salt and relishing having fun with sound. 

Photograph: c0nnels_camera

Daisy’s pace of constructing songs has variety; when writing as part of Wonk, her former band in America, (who’s stellar album My Tiny Escalator Goes to Heaven is available on streaming platforms) she deliberately undertook writing a song really quickly and aligned that kind of process to a creeping graph that steadily trundles until it shoots up, as a song’s formation slots all of a sudden into place. Yet sometimes it can take forever. The Itch was an idea she had talked about since starting music; the concept formed a song she wrote for her former band Springhouse, yet The Itch’s present iteration has now evolved into a completely different entity, shaped by experience. 

This change in how her songs have evolved reflects Daisy’s broader need for malleability. She discussed her hesitancy in releasing her music, down to how simply her songs sometimes never feel finished. She professes a fear of a song becoming a concrete object– a concern a lot of musicians reckon with. The essence of playing a song live embraces a song’s changeability in its nature, the contrast between her intimate set at Beat Generation Records to Goodbye, Goodbye, where she’ll be accompanied by a 7-person band and a choir, is a prime example of this. It is this change and flexibility in playing live, how two performances of the same song can alter it entirely, that Daisy finds so exciting. Live performance is what Daisy loves: it’s an integral forefront of her music as it creates an animated, symbiotic relationship with her listener–something inaccessible through YouTube or a recording. 

The effect of her performance on the crowd shapes how she constructs a set. Daisy has never played the same set twice. She expresses special care in selecting her openers and closers, the bookmarking frames of a gig which often comprise the key memories to her. Yet it is also the set’s entire movement she considers–its pace, dynamics, especially considering the amount of people involved for this goodbye show. She notes the fun she seeks in figuring this out, likening the process to a play, or any type of creative performance, ultimately maintaining an acute consciousness of the audience. 

To bring the conversation back to our location, I asked Daisy about her favourite musical memories of Edinburgh. She recalled the sell-out STAR (Student Action For Refugees) fundraiser gig, which was her first-ever solo headline show. She was accompanied by a full band, playing with all her friends; in the middle of a cover of Bob Dylan’s You’re a Big Girl Now, she conducted an impromptu ceilidh. She noted the sheer joy of that night, as well as her fondness for Edinburgh. She also mentions the Music and Poetry Night, a fundraiser for Palestine in her flat, packed with nearly a hundred people, her duet gig with Gordon McGruer; supporting 3p Slot Machine at The Mash House, performing at Edinburgh Charity Fashion Show. Most importantly, however, her memories are of the people: performing and collaborating with her best friends in various forms and capacities. 

So, what will Daisy leave in her farewell to Edinburgh as she heads back to London to continue music? 

Daisy wants Goodbye, Goodbye to be her ‘implosion’: her presence, her memories of Edinburgh, left all on the table. She’ll be joined by a host of musical collaborators and friends from across the years: 

Raymond MacDonald, Gordon McGruer, Northern Lights Singers, Sam Jolley, Oisin Rice, Ava Vaccari, Roan Clawson, James Smith, James Veitch Linus Beef, Connel’s Camera, special guest Morgan T Morris, and after party led by Umbrella Vinyl. 

It’s sure to be an emotional one, beautifully bittersweet, and a showcase of the sheer brilliance of Daisy Casemore’s world. It is well and truly not one to miss.

Photograph: @ejpuddington

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You can get tickets to Daisy’s Edinburgh farewell, Goodbye, Goodbye on the 18th May at People’s Leisure Club via Daisy’s website: https://daisycasemore.com/upcoming-shows  

Daisy will also be performing at FreshAir’s Battle of the Bands on the 19th May, tickets available: https://www.zeffy.com/en-GB/ticketing/battle-of-the-bands-10  

Keep up to date with the wonderful things Daisy gets up to on her Instagram and over at D to Z Presents. @daisycasemore @dtozpresents  

As well as tickets, interviews and more, you can find demos and performances over on her website, Bandcamp and YouTube. https://daisycasemore.com/  

Thank you so much to Daisy Casemore for her time. 

Words and interview by Evie Lancaster, FreshAir Radio