Straight outta Dalston
She's got a big mouth, a funny name and a knack for writing great songs. Meet thecocknbullkid.
Phil Muncaster
Anita Blay is in a bit of a hurry. Despite her tender years, this 23 yr old east Londoner has by her own admission been “trudging along and developing for a while now”, and she hopes her time in the sun might have finally come. And the more you listen to her, the more you begin to think it too.
If Blay comes across as mature-beyond-her-years it could be because she has been making music in some form or another for over ten years now. Born to Ghanaian parents she has been through her fair share of teenaged angst, of doing things of questionable morality, but it would also be fair to say that she has now finally found her voice.
As the cocknbullkid – ‘one word, with no apostrophies please’, according to the exhortation on her site – Blay writes songs with a dark heart, but gloriously uplifting melodies. Already released single from her forthcoming debut long player, On My Own, and I’m Not Sorry (out this week) speak of emotionally imbalanced relationships, of love, betrayal, sadness and a hard-edged stoicism. Coupled with 80s synths, very poppy percussion and other electro bells and whistles, they pay homage, like all great songs, to artists of the past – Human League, Kate Bush, David Bowie et al. - without being overtly derivative.
“I try to work retrospectively; I don’t like listening to things at the same time as I’m writing, that way my influences will show in a more natural way,” she says, by way of explanation. “I’m not going to write music and listen to Kate Bush because then I’d end up sounding like her. I’d like to think the album is going to be the best pop album you’ve heard for a while.”
Said album has been premeditated enough to feature both dark and light, according to Blay; which equates to lots of pop and a bit of experimentation, although “no 12 minute handclap solos”, she says. For the chorus of On my Own, then, we get upbeat plinky plonky keyboards accompanying a poignant chorus: On my own again, cos I can’t take you anywhere, it kills me cos it used to be such fun...
The album will be the product of a happy family of four separate producers, including Metronomy founder Joe Mount, whose influence on On My Own is so distinctive it could almost be a Metronomy song with Blay providing guest vocals. The two met via that budding artists’ mecca MySpace and decided to make an album together, before his own career got in the way, she says.
“I’m their biggest fan. The world isn’t fair – if it was they’d be massive but Joe wants a career, not just to be a flash-in-the-pan and he’s working up making a name for himself,” she gushes. So who’ll make it first; them or her? For the first time Blay plays it a bit coy. “I wanna play the long game, but I’m also impatient and quite competitive,” she says. “I want to be able to make album four five and six, but if you wait until a certain age to get your foot in the door, then it becomes tougher…”. So, her then.
As much as I love Metronomy, I’ve got a feeling she’ll be first too. There’s a dreamer, an escapist in all good songwriters, but with Blay this is balanced by a well-worn pragmatism. She laments the age when artists like Bowie could be as enigmatic as they liked, and weren't forced to give a hundred interviews a month just to keep their employers happy, but she realises times have changed.
“It’s a sad fact that you have to give something away for people to be interested in your music, although I have a big mouth, so I probably couldn’t be enigmatic anyway,” she concludes. Well, who are we to argue? – the cocknbullkid seems to have things worked out quite nicely as it is.
I'm Not Sorry
I'm not sorry is out 9 March on Moshi Moshi Records
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