The British singer is in Brazil to promote the new release and will perform tonight at Casa Rockambole in Pinheiros, SP
British singer-songwriter Gabrielle Aplin joins forces with Brazilian phenomenon Zeeba in a new version of her hit “Skylight”, the soundtrack for Globoplay’s telenovela “Todas as Flores” and the opening track of her recently released album “Phosphorescent”. The alternative and intimate pop of the original version gains new contours of complicity and warmth when it becomes a duet.
With this launch, Gabrielle reinforces her connection with the Brazilian public – the artist arrives in São Paulo this week for an art exhibition and an intimate show presenting the universe of “Phosphorescent” to her fans. Since he started releasing covers on YouTube just over a decade ago, Aplin has achieved a Gold Record-certified album, which reached #2 in the UK charts (“English Rain”, 2013) and has accumulated 258 million views. views on your channel.
In Brazil, she topped the charts in 2016 with the hit “Home”, which was the theme of the soap opera “Totalmente Demais” (TV Globo). It was so successful that the artist performed live in the middle of the plot. Now she opens a new page in her career with the new album. Check out the interview!
Released now in January through music platforms, the album “Phosphorescent”, brought a more intimate air and of seeing light after a moment that was very difficult for the whole world, the pandemic. Even if the project has not necessarily become a product of the same, how was the essence of this project born?
The heaviest period of the pandemic was a very strong isolation for me, back in the UK. At the time, I didn’t have any planned “I’m going to make a record”, no pressure like “look, you have to put out a new record”. I was just writing for fun. the moment I realized I was making an album was watching that series “Planeta Azul”, of documentaries about the oceans. And they go, in one of the episodes, to the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the seas and which inspired my track “Mariana Trench”. Scientists for years thought this was a point of darkness and lifelessness, but diving there found a lot of life and I felt this was a good metaphor for what we were going through as humans.
For many people, music turns out to be an important therapy tool, so to speak, that comforts us and helps us deal with different situations, in your case, regrets and self-reflection. Do you believe that music has played a crucial role in your life in recent years?
Yes! And I feel that during the pandemic I felt that people rediscovered in many cases that they can be creative and that is good for them, not just music, but literature, gastronomy… That you could do something more. I know many people who even changed their lives, opened new businesses at that time. I feel that it showed the need we feel to be artists, each in our own way.
Regarding the self-knowledge you obtained in the construction of “Phosphorescent”, would you consider that Gabrielle from before is still the same after working with these songs? Who is Gabrielle Aplin today?
I really feel like I’m a different person but in a positive way. I went back to the countryside where I grew up, with more contact with nature. The album was made in this process of discovering myself.
Anyone who knows her or seeks to know more about her life knows that music is an element present in her daily life, so much so that today her numbers express the reach and power she exercises, including more than 1 billion streams on platforms , a certified Gold Record album, reaching No. 2 in the UK, along with 258 million views. If you could talk to Gabrielle from a decade ago, from covers on YouTube, what would you have to say to her after everything she’s lived through today?
I would say no need to be afraid and for her to enjoy everything. A lot has happened very fast. I grew up in a poor family and all of a sudden I was traveling the world. It was intense and I had anxiety the whole time.
In addition to you, the project had the help of producer Mike Spencer and his songwriting partner Liz Horsman, who in this project helped to transcribe all the inspiration you got in contact with nature. From experience, what are her true powers to inspire us artistically?
It was all wonderful. By the way, I tell Liz and Mike that they are like my parents in music. I did “English Rain” with Mike. It was like revisiting that with more experience and maturity.
For television fans, you have also stood out a lot in the soundtracks of Brazilian teledramaturgy, and your songs were featured in the soundtracks of the soap opera “Totalmente Demais” and more recently, in the soundtrack of “Todas as Flores”, soap opera on the streaming platform Globoplay. Has this public success that comes from television reached you?
Yes, and it’s amazing! I really love the way audiovisual can change the context of a song and how people have created their own meanings for themselves here also guided by audiovisual. A while ago I did a cover for a Christmas album in the UK that was used in Australia in a horror ending in an amazing way.
Speaking of Brazil, today you’re here promoting the release of your album, and I’d like to ask what you’ve been enjoying most about the country and what are the main cultural differences you’ve found compared to the UK?
People are so friendly! I love meeting people and being more open and in the UK it’s the opposite of that. I feel that in Brazil I can be myself without looking weird! (Laughs)
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