At what point in the process of making the album do you start to see the visual world that’s going to surround it?
I remember doing a sketch of the Motherwitch costume, which was crocheted with a womb embroidered on the front and milk drips coming from the breasts, with these baby bottle teats in the train and milk teeth around the chest. It was this sort of beautiful, mythical creature—a heightened version of the mother archetype in all her femininity, but with those grisly details of the leaky boobs and the teeth falling out. It’s all very animal. Then with Alexandra Green, who is the choreographer and art director with me, we started developing this language of movement, which all started with me improvising these domestic daily movements, like cooking food, picking up the baby, breastfeeding. These repetitive, mundane movements, from which we created these sort of devotional moving mantras. We talked a lot about birth rituals and midwives, because they were such a big part of the history of women birthing, and then they kind of got pushed aside when birth became very medicalized. But before that, there was this ancient myth of the midwife’s wisdom. I had Delphi at home, and I had my midwife who was with me throughout the whole pregnancy and had so much knowledge and wisdom, and I wanted that represented in the visuals too. And then obviously in all the videos there’s a big element of nature, and being in the grass, or under the trees, or in the mud. That was important to me, because I think that’s our connection back to the original mother source.
The fashion and the costumes you’ve created for The Dream of Delphi are pretty incredible too, from those flowing, priestess-like robes to the pleather puff sleeves in the “At Your Feet” video.
It was a combination of things, really. This designers Agro Studio and Maddy Rara and I started talking about the Motherwitch drawing, and we started making this crochet bodysuit with all the caps and the chiffon and everything. And then for the “Letter to My Daughter” video, my stylist Lucy James and I talked a lot of about these Mongolian and mountain folk outfits. My dad’s from northern Pakistan, and there were references to that in the layering of things. Then there’s also the leather and the belts and the more warrior-like aspects. With the dress in the “At Your Feet” video, the white pleather dress is from this brand called Serpenti that I just ordered for myself because I loved it. It’s almost got a Western, cowgirl, Dolly Parton cut at the front of it, but then, with these puff sleeves, a sort of Georgian or Edwardian feel. It felt both modern and ancient at the same time, which is how I wanted all of the costumes to feel, I think. Touching on lots of ancient, cultural, religious aspects, but bringing it all into the present day.