Emerging Liverpool based performer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Pixey has released her brand new EP, Free To Live In Colour.
Free To Live In Colour was written, recorded and produced in Pixey’s bedroom in Liverpool - with additional production added by frequent Gorillaz and Jamie T collaborator James Dring - and draws inspiration from genres like hardcore breakbeat and dream pop.
The EP, her first release on new label home Chess Club, features the singles Just Move, Electric Dream, and new track The Mersey Line.
Pixey grew up in the sleepy but picturesque village Parbold, Lancashire before moving to Liverpool for school and remaining there to this day.
Now signed to Chess Club - a label famed for breaking new talent, where recent signings include Alfie Templeman and Phoebe Green, and past successes include Jungle, Wolf Alice and Easy Life - Pixey is making more waves than ever before.
Just Move drew attention from BBC Radio 1 DJs Jack Saunders (who made Pixey one of his Next Wave artists) and Huw Stephens amongst many other admirers like Radio X’s John Kennedy who added the band to the X-Posure playlist at the station in October 2020.
Pixey has also featured as the cover artist of Spotify’s Indie Brandneu (GER) and Peach editorial playlists, racking up over 700,000 spins in the process, and was amongst the artists named in major annual tips lists, the Dork HYPE List and the NME 100.
“I wanted a collection of tracks which gave a quick snapshot into me and my brain - where I’m from, where I want to be and what I’m thinking about,” says Pixey. “I hope people can take something meaningful from it or simply have a dance.”
Of the music video for The Mersey Line, she added:
“The Mersey Line video was shot in one day at all my favourite haunts around the city. The song itself is about the walkway line along the River Mersey, so we retraced the steps I used to take as a kid and also when I was starting out as a musician. I would write lyrics to my songs along the same path. I wanted something that sums me up wholly as a person, and I’d say the video does just that.”
Pixey first discovered music as a toddler - she remembers not even being able to walk yet but desperate to sing and dance to Queen - before discovering the likes of Kate Bush, Björk, and George Harrison, whose classic songwriting struck a chord with her in her youth.
The catalyst for Pixey’s musical coming of age however, was a near fatal viral illness suffered in early 2016 which hospitalised her.
"When I thought I was going to die I thought of all the things I wish I’d done and music was the first thing I thought of. As soon as I started recovering I started learning to record and produce," she recalls.
She taught herself Ableton production software before mastering guitar, and eventually drums and bass.
Once able to carve out her own sound, Pixey turned to The Verve, The Prodigy and De La Soul for sonic inspiration.
“I particularly like the idea of using samples/making my own riffs sound like samples which was heavily inspired by the [De La Soul] album 3 Feet High and Rising. Starting out initially though, Grimes was a huge catalyst when I realised she wrote, recorded and produced herself.”
Her prolific and unusual songwriting style stems from an original riff or beat, with further layers added as she records and produces, and lyrics being added last - the process taking only a day or two.