I’ve always been a big fan of the Irish accent. Scottish is good, Australian is better, but, for me, Irish takes the biscuit. With singer-songwriter Soak, or, as she asks me to call her, Bridie Monds-Watson, accent is something that radiates from her. Not just in terms of her speaking voice, though the seventeen-year-old who hails from Derry, Ireland does have a beautiful Celtic drawl, but also in terms of her music. You can feel her nation in her vowel sounds when she sings. There is no better example of this than in her gorgeous new track Blud. ‘‘I say it [blood] like Blud so the spelling became a nice reflection of that’’. However, she admits that, primarily, the idiosyncratic spelling came out of practicality. ‘‘Recently there’s been a lot of artists who have done songs with a similar title, like Bastille did Bad Blood and there’s a guy called Saint Raymond who I think has a song called blood or something,’’ so the spelling helped her carve her own niche. She did so even though, with regards to the title, she got there before them: ‘‘I wrote the song a year and a half ago so I was here first’’ she says cheekily. I mention my weakness for her Irish inflection of Blud, and also its spelling, and she laughs. ‘‘It looks more interesting too’’ she tells me, ‘‘like it's in some strange language’’.  

A discussion of accent follows on to Chvrches - the band whom she is supporting on tour, and to whose new label, Goodbye Records, she has recently signed. ‘‘I like that you can hear Lauren’s accent when she sings. I like the Scottish accent anyway but it also makes her voice more individual’’. She also talks about the ‘‘forced American accent’’ from some English bands and how it ‘‘puts you off completely’’ whenever you hear it. Speak how you speak she says, as anyone’s actual voice is generally ‘‘a lot more original, a lot more unique’’. I go on to ask her about Chvrches remix of Blud and what she thought of it. ‘‘Oh I love it. It’s so disco-ee and 80’s. It’s kind of my party tune now, which is so vain! Partying to your own song, though technically it’s not all me, it’s Chvrches too’’.

Enquiring about some of the best gigs she’s done, and other interactions with different bands, Soak mentions a support act for The Lumineers, as a standout moment. ‘‘That was like a 10,000 capacity thing and it was brilliant’’. I ask how approaching something that much larger affects her performance, in terms of mood, atmosphere or delivery. ‘‘The energy from the crowd is generally going to affect how I perform. Like if they’re rowdy and don’t give a shit - because if you are a support artist and you do a lot of support shows you get used to that because people aren’t there for you - it might be a harder gig. You might not feel 100% comfortable on stage but, you have to do it anyway. But if it’s a great crowd, and they’re willing to listen, and are onboard to have some banter with me when I chat shit in between songs then it will be a really good gig, I’ll be more confident, and it will probably make me play a lot better’’.

I was lucky enough to hear Soak perform later that night. Giving her the attention she said she didn’t always get at support slots was the right decision, and an easy one. With her music you really can just sit back and have it wash over you, let it (I couldn’t not) Soak in. The crowd were equally admiring and it seems that, if only for a night, I wasn’t the only one with a thing for an Irish accent.