Glasgow-based singer-songwriter Becci Wallace is used to bringing musicians together. She is a passionate educator, who lectures on the BA and MA Music courses at the University of the West of Scotland, and a serial collaborator, with the likes of Pearlfisher David Scott and rapper Loki. However, the harmonising voices on her Scotsman Sessions version of forthcoming single Swan Song are all her own.

“It was the first piece I wrote for my new album,” she says. “I hadn’t written anything in around two years after having my second child and was feeling quite isolated and separated from the music scene. I had lost a lot of confidence. Then a friend called me and asked me to write a song about a swan for a piece she was putting together for a festival. The metaphor rang so true with me – the image of a graceful swan pedalling furiously underneath the water felt viscerally connected to my situation. From this song, the concept and feeling of my album fell into place and I started to write again.”

Wallace might as well be describing how many musicians have felt throughout the pandemic. “Lockdown has certainly been a challenge with the kids and trying to work from home,” she says. “However, from the beginning of the first lockdown, I knew I wouldn’t get through it without a musical community.”

So Wallace mobilised her own community, starting a Sunday Songwriting group and co-founding the online SongSeeds Songwriting Retreats with fellow singer/songwriter Rosie Bans, in addition to releasing her album, Present Tense, creating a podcast series, That’s What She Said, for women in the music industry and starting a PhD researching hip-hop education. Is that all…? “Basically, I’ve been annoyingly productive…” she says.

Present Tense is available now at www.becciwallace.net and streaming on: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5U2rW0lG3TIlJzDqhLl4Mw?si=cYK1DNTtQf6f_NlOWvup8A

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The Scotsman Sessions #197: Becci Wallace