Alternative Folk from Roxy Rawson

Roxy Rawson is an artist who’s been on an extraordinary creative adventure unlike any other. Born into a Mormon community in Hitchin in the UK, her early life was informed by church hymns and ritual but even then, she was already looking beyond the chapel walls. Creatively curious from the start, Roxy refused to let structure stifle her imagination and that defiance has paved her artistic path ever since, resulting in a career that’s drifted across genres, borders and even states of being.

Her musical awakening began in Paris, where she traded hymn books for violins and conservatories for open mics. While studying classical violin and piano at Conservatory Paris VI, she discovered jazz, joined an African choir and found a new home in the city’s anti-folk collective AsYet, collaborating with kindred spirits like Fiona Bevan and William Nein.

Returning to London, she channelled her experiences into teaching music in inner-city schools and studying international development, travelling through Rwanda, DRC and Sudan before finding her way back to the stage. Her debut EP, Changing Things, arrived in 2015 under a Sony development deal, earning radio support from John Kennedy, Rob da Bank and Tom Robinson.

With it came high-profile performances at venues like Ronnie Scott’s, Union Chapel, the Roundhouse and the Royal Albert Hall, where her voice, often compared to Joanna Newsom and Agnes Obel, began to turn heads. Then, in 2012, everything stopped. Roxy fell severely ill with Lyme Disease and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, illnesses that would sideline her for years but following her recovery in 2018, she released her long-awaited debut album Quenching the Kill to critical acclaim.

Now based in Berlin, Roxy Rawson works as a composer, curator and healer where she also founded the Feral Folk Festival, a gathering of experimental artists in modern folk, while also working as a Compassionate Body Coach, supporting others living with chronic illness. Her forthcoming sophomore album, Bright Star, due in 2026, is set to expand her exploration of emotional determination and renewal, featuring warm arrangements crafted in collaboration with acclaimed composer Jherek Bischoff.

Offering the first taste of this exciting new chapter, her latest single titled “I found a place in the woods,” was inspired by the fairytale The Three Ravens. Framed in a cinematic arrangement of alternative folk, the song presents a meditation on finding solace in nature after divorce. Produced by Bischoff, the track balances elegant strings, lively flute and delicate piano against Roxy’s ethereal yet commanding vocals, crafting an atmosphere that’s at once mournful and luminous.

Gently building from an intricate intro of plucked instrumentation and graceful vocal performance, the steady patter of percussion maintains a hypnotic groove as Roxy’s spectacular voice takes flight above the developing arrangement. Peppered with the mesmeric flicker of flute leads and carried by the dazzling sweep of strings, Roxy’s impassioned vocals deliver stunning melodic leads throughout, offering an engrossing musical experience from start to finish.

Accompanying the release is a hand-drawn animated video by Anna Maria Lesevic, set deep within a forest where a woman, lost in grief, slowly finds her way back to herself and much like the song, it’s a visual symphony of shadows and light. With her highly anticipated second album on the way, Roxy Rawson is set to fully resume her incredible musical story and we can’t wait to see what it entails.

Commenting on the single, she shares, “This song was inspired by a fairytale called The Three Ravens and explores finding solace in nature after my divorce. It’s about balancing self-presence with partnership and seeking healthy connections against the contrasting recognition and grief of not having found that within my marriage. It’s also about how our environments tend to mirror our internal states, and the song charts the movement from grief and darkness to hope and celebration.”

Listen to I found a place in the woods below

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