By Will McGuirk
The enigmatic singer/songwriter Rachel Bobbitt from the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia will be playing Mariposa Festival which runs July 3,4,5 2026 at Tudhope Park in Orillia ON. Bobbitt also is releasing an EP of songs July 24, a companion of B-Sides to her debut full-length, Swimming Towards The Sand, which was released last October.
We had a chat by email prior to her heading to Mariposa.
Slowcity.ca: Congrats on the Mariposa gig - what are you looking forward to most at the Festival and what does playing the festival mean to you personally?
Rachel Bobbitt: “Thank you so much! I’m honestly just so excited to see everyone else play throughout the weekend- I’m so honoured to be playing alongside musicians I’ve looked up to for years. This festival specifically is a huge full circle moment for me - I always say Leonard Cohen was the first artist that I truly fell in love with in my early teens, and to play at a festival where he once performed is a dream.”
SC: How did music enter your life and why did it become important to you?
RB: “Music is something that was always a part of my life. My grandparents were very musical, and in classic east coast style would bring out the fiddle, accordion, & guitars for just about any family gathering. In that way music was always around, and when I started singing my parents were both incredibly encouraging. Throughout my high school years, like most teenagers, music was the way that I made sense of the world and my emotions, and in many ways that has remained true to today.”
SC: How do you approach making music - lyrics first, hearing sounds first, fiddling around in a studio, what is your process?
RB: “One of my favourite parts of the writing process is building out the world in a DAW - I use Ableton, and generally find myself creating a pretty full instrumental before inserting melodies/lyrical ideas. I find inspiration for building a song instrumentally comes very quickly, and the lyrics and melodies are slower to come for me- so I will usually build an idea in a DAW and loop it while I try out different ideas over top.”
SC: On your album ‘Swimming Towards the Sands’ early 80s pop star Jane Siberry comes to my mind - something in the vocals - who are the vocalists you admire and have impressed you?
RB: “So kind!! Thank you- her voice is beautiful. I’m very inspired by Imogen Heap and Caroline Polachek- they both use their voices in such unexpected and strange ways. I love the way they make me see my voice as a true instrument- something I can manipulate and experiment with. I am also always taken by their ability to layer and loop vocal parts into something that sounds nothing like a voice at all. I am also deeply inspired by Elizabeth Fraser for similar reasons, and was recently inspired daily by Toronto musician Lia Pappas Kemps. I was lucky enough to do a run of shows with her over the past month, and the control she has over her instrument combined with the emotion she puts into every note is endlessly inspiring.”
SC: “The ocean does not care about you at all,” declares Rachel Bobbitt. “That’s what makes something truly awesome—it could and will exist, with or without you.” is the pull quote on the PR. What is your experience of the ocean? I grew up in Dublin and feel a friendship with the sea. Bit mad but I love being in it, I trust it. What is your relationship with the waters you grew up around?
RB: “Oh I love that- growing up near the ocean is something I am so grateful for. It’s constant motion is very grounding to me, and I also love swimming when I’m home. The Atlantic is freezing and rocky and not entirely enjoyable to be in, but to me that’s what makes it so special. It makes you feel like you earn it when you’re around its beauty.”
SC: How did this companion EP come about and why do you feel it has a partnership with the previous work rather than starting anew ?
RB: “These songs are all tracks that were written for the album, but ultimately didn’t make it on. In that way they all feel very connected to this album- drawing from similar inspirations, and coming from a similar time in my life. It feels to me like a nice way to close the chapter on this project, and be able to fully move forward with new material.”
SC: “I always say I wish I could put everyone I love in a bubble” you say - I’m wondering if your way of bubbling people is wrapping them in a song - does music have that kind of presence for you - like climb inside a song type of thing is almost a physical reality?
RB: “Wow I love this way of thinking- I really resonate with that! Absolutely- to me songs are little worlds. I view them the same way I view old journal entries- they mark a moment in time and allow you to step in and out of it in a beautiful way. Everything in a song, the instrumentation, lyrics, melodies- it all is helping deepen the grooves of whatever world you’re trying to create. It sounds a bit corny, but there are some songs that put me places that are so distinct and intense I can only listen to them every so often. It is one of the parts of music that I find the most awe inspiring. It can transcend time and place completely and take you somewhere entirely new.”
Rachel Bobbitt takes us somewhere new with her music, marrying tradition with innovation. She plays the Estelle Klein Stage Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and will also take part in the If You Can Read My Mind workshop on Sunday at Noon. Tickets to Mariposa here ->