Q&A: Yoshika Colwell’s Debut Album ‘On The Wing’ Soars Through Solitude and Healing
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
LIFE COMES IN DIFFERENT SEASONS — After a decade marked by a shifting of her inner world, finding solace in solitude and retreat, indie-folk artist Yoshika Colwell steps into the spotlight with her debut album On The Wing. Written in the aftermath of a move, a breakup, and the global stillness of lockdown, the album reflects a period of profound inner reckoning.
On The Wing unfolds like a diary written in real time. “It felt like I’d been stripped away,” Colwell reflects. “And then it was just about: What do I actually want to say?”
For Colwell, returning to songwriting meant shedding everything that wasn’t essential. “I went through this big period of about 10 years of really losing my confidence before coming back, literally in the last few years, and stripping all the extraneous stuff away; just sitting with my guitar and playing and writing,” she says. What emerged from that raw place is a collection of songs shaped by intuition and quiet power—what she calls “a natural filtration process for my psyche.”
The result is a body of work that feels elemental. Colwell’s lyrics move through mortality, acceptance, love, isolation and the weight and warmth of family. Delivered in soft, steady vocals and framed by delicate guitar lines and subtle instrumentation, the tracks on On The Wing invite stillness. There’s space to feel, and space to breathe.
As a woman writing deeply personal, guitar-led folk music, Colwell is acutely aware of the gendered double standards in how emotional songwriting is received. “When women write about their emotions in a diaristic fashion it’s often seen as self-indulgent,” she says. “Whereas when men do it, it’s very ‘layered’ and ‘nuanced.’” It’s a criticism she’s long wrestled with, but one that no longer steers her work. “In the last couple of years I’ve been freed of it, and with the strength of the emotions here, it felt like I had to write about this.”
Though the songs began in solitude, On The Wing took flight in the hands of producer Oli Bayston, who helped Colwell expand her intimate sketches into vivid, emotionally textured pieces. Together, they brought in a small circle of collaborators, adding instrumentation that never overpowers but instead breathes alongside her lyrics.
On The Wing may be rooted in solitude, but it ultimately reaches outward, offering listeners not just a window into Colwell’s inner world, but a mirror to their own.
Photography Credit: Tilly Wace
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
YOSHIKA: So many people. I grew up with so many different sonic influences — a lot of Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Neil Young, Nick Drake and John Martin. I love Kate Bush because she's not afraid to go big and go weird. My favorite song of hers is the second half of Hounds of Love, like “Jig of Life” and “And Dream of Sheep.” All of those songs are a whole part of my psyche that scratches a niche for me. I think there's this blend of worlds, which is some of the more traditional folk artists, which is slightly more experimental. All of those things have had a big influence on me.
LUNA: What kind of atmosphere or emotional space do you aim to create for your listeners?
YOSHIKA: That’s a really good question. I really hope that the songs and the recordings capture the real intimacy of the emotions that are being explored, and create a space for people to relate to that if they do and engage with the songwriting if it resonates with people. I hope to create a space for people to be able to access that. And that's by being as honest as possible from the beginning of the process. I just want it to be deeply intimate.
LUNA: You have released your debut album On The Wing and a huge congratulations is in order! What is the inspiration behind the project and what themes or emotions do you explore?
YOSHIKA: It's my first full length record, and I think because of that, it spans quite a long period of time. The songs are exploring things that happened to me or happened in my life throughout my twenties, and it's like a decade's worth of relationships, unpicking family, entrenched family dynamics and things about myself that have frustrated me a lot. I think there's a lot in there about frustration and stagnation and not knowing how to move forward in my life. The record starts off a bit hopeless, and then by the end, there's a lot of shedding and catharsis. That's how it felt for me anyway. It's a lot of uncovering the real, honest truth about how rubbish this feels, or doing some analysis of how my behavior was slightly off in that scenario or repetitive patterns of behavior. By the end, it's tied up with a pretty ribbon and it’s done and dusted, but I think there's a degree of acceptance and processing. It's been a deeply cathartic record to make.
LUNA: On The Wing beautifully explores the cycles of life—grief, renewal, solitude and hope. When you first started writing this album, did you have a clear vision of what themes you wanted to explore, or did they emerge naturally as you wrote?
YOSHIKA: I think that it came out organically because of the point in time in my life that I was naturally at and I think some of the songs already existed. These themes seem to be prevalent, and then as it went on, it encouraged that more. I wanted to try and encourage myself to go towards things rather than avoiding them. My writing had a more direct approach to some of those things, and in some of my previous writing, I was uncomfortable, but I'm going to do it regardless.
LUNA: You’ve spoken about the double standards around emotional songwriting—how women are often seen as “self-indulgent” while men are praised for being “nuanced.” How do you navigate those perceptions in your own work?
YOSHIKA: I'm constantly in a dialog with that, and constantly trying to remind myself that it's not that it is okay to do the kind of diarizing songwriting as a woman, and I think actually weirdly leaning into it more and not attempting to change the way I write, just more of a radical acceptance of that is really helpful, and just looking to songwriters that I admire, both contemporaries and my friends and stuff. I fully, deeply respect and know how necessary emotional honesty is in the world. It's the dialogue with oneself which is so ongoing, yeah, and looking to the other people who inspire me.
LUNA: I would love to know more about the creative process. What did a typical recording and songwriting session look like for you? How did the songs evolve from the initial idea to its final version?
YOSHIKA: Across the record, the songs were created in different ways. Some of them I just wrote on my own when I lived in a caravan in Kent. I spent quite a lot of time there last year, so some of them were written in complete solitude. Some of those songs felt like they popped out, which is not common for me, and that was really nice. “Last Night” and “Into The Water” were these songs that were written in that space. Then there were some songs that I started writing, or nearly finished, and then I took them and collaborated with some friends to finish writing them. Some songs came out of a kind of stream of consciousness playing sessions, which was really interesting, too. Recording-wise, it was all recorded at my friend Oli. He's an amazing producer and lovely person, an amazing pianist. He played piano across the whole record. Me and Oli spent a lot of time adding things on, getting really deep with backing vocals and things like that.
LUNA: When you feel a creative spark coming on, what do you need in your space to nurture it? Are there any rituals, objects, or energies you always return to?
YOSHIKA: I have a big collection of rocks that I love, a lot of hag stones and a lot of shells. I realize more and more how much I need complete solitude and not to be perceived, which is complicated. I live in a shared house with people I absolutely adore, but it's that interesting thing where I’m so sensitive to being heard in any way, because my brain is so busy and so critical of myself, I think I need to try and forget as much as possible what I'm doing and what's going on. Sometimes, if you're perceived, you're like, ‘I'm real and I'm not in this abstract space.’ I need a lot of space. I like being in nature. I like being outside. I play a lot in my garden. We've got a fig tree down at the end of the garden. I do love my rocks. I love my Palo Santo and creating a nice conducive space.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the album — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Yoshika is right now?
YOSHIKA: “Today” and “Into The Water” are the ones that feel closest to my heart or the truest. I think it encapsulates a lot of the things I think about, which is death, things ending in cycles. It's not a morbid song, but the core of it captures, or explores, the way I move through the world, which is trying to be like, I know everything ends and I have to make my peace with that, but it's quite difficult.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners take away from this record, especially those in their own cycles of retreat, healing or rebirth?
YOSHIKA: I hope that people feel or take away a sense of knowing that you have time and that it's not it will take however long it takes, and that any amount of time it takes is valid and that it's worth processing and going towards the things that are scary because if you don't, then they just stay in there and stagnate. That's not supposed to be prescriptive or anything like self help, but I hope that the album provides space for normalizing things that can take a very long time.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
YOSHIKA: I'm feeling really good. I think now that the record is out, I'm feeling a lot of excitement and relief and acceptance. I'm just moving to a space of feeling really excited, rather than being scared. I'm just really excited for it to be out. The week that the record comes out, I'm doing a series of in-store live shows at some really nice independent record shops. In the autumn, I'm going to go and support an amazing artist with Fionn Regan in October.
