“All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid/ Nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant,” chants Derbyshire-born Paris Paloma on Labour. Last year, this rousing, folk-pop questioning of gender inequality earned the now 23-year-old a legion of feminist TikTok response videos, a UK Top 40 single and more than 146m streams on Spotify alone. Channelling a gothic sense of femininity and a strong set of lungs that place her as a natural successor to Florence + the Machine, Paloma makes music rooted in romantic literature and centuries of history.
Paloma started writing songs while studying for a fine art degree at Goldsmiths, London, which perhaps accounts for the literary world-building that marks out her work. Labour was inspired by Madeline Miller’s witchy novel Circe, while a 2021 track, The Last Beautiful Thing I Saw Is the Thing That Blinded Me, references Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Paloma’s forthcoming debut album, Cacophony, takes its inspiration from Stephen Fry’s book of Greek myth retellings, Mythos, to create a narrative album that goes on a “hero’s journey”.
The record ranges from literal screams – on opener My Mind (Now) – to softer moments, such as the brooding, string-laden melancholy of His Land, or Triassic Love Song, whose tender sparseness recalls early Billie Eilish. The through line is an eye for wild women and cruel men, untamed passions and wind-whipped, doomed romances that should gift Kate Bush’s recently acquired new generation of fans their next infatuation.
Cacophony is out on 30 August via Nettwerk. Paris Paloma plays Leeds festival (23 August), Reading festival (25th) and tours the UK, 17-28 November
