THE TRANSFORMATION OF A SELKIE: LIVE FROM THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS

INTERVIEW | SELKIE @ THE OLD HAIRDRESSERS, GLASGOW | 13th May 2026 by Amy Irene Marquez

Scottish ambient pop singer-songwriter and producer Selkie builds a shimmering, diaphanous world out of sound. Watching her perform at Glasgow’s The Old Hairdressers, I felt as though I were witnessing a selkie shed her metaphorical skin to reveal her raw vulnerability. Her music is deeply cerebral, leaving me lost in thought and struggling to find the words for the profound musical places she took me. It made me feel like I was riding on a cloud, even if the sky wasn’t always blue.

On stage, she performs like a conduit for something that is simultaneously within and outside of herself. With poetic lyrics and a cinematic grandeur, Selkie’s sound feels destined for a film soundtrack, perfectly amplifying scenes of love, longing, and seeking. Yet, while her current sound is beautifully atmospheric, her track ‘Heartspeak’ holds a vibrant energy that could easily be remixed into a pulsing summer dance anthem.

Having always loved the Scottish folklore of the selkie, I was instantly intrigued to hear her play. Her music lived up to the name – it is mysterious, complex, and deeply cerebral, leaving me wondering, ‘Where did we all go? How did we all get here?’

Selkie (Amy Irene Marquez/Northern Exposure)

A Scottish oral tradition with many variations, the selkie folklore has been retold with different plot points as a tale of empowerment. Tracing back to the Scottish Isles with links to the Faroe Islands and Iceland too, the selkie lore tells the tale of seal creature who can transform into the most beautiful woman that anyone has ever laid eyes on. Playfully dancing under the moonlight along the beach, when she sheds her seal skin to reveal her human form it leaves her very vulnerable. The story continues when a man, enamoured by her beauty, steals the selkie’s skin and hides it to prevent her from ever returning home to the sea. Forcing marriage, she goes on to bear his children whilst longing to return home.

In different endings, the selkie finds her seal skin and returns to the sea, caught between two worlds missing her family on land yet choosing the sea. There are some suggestions that the folklore was created to help explain the absence of a person, particularly to children. If a parent tragically vanished, it was gentler to tell a child they were simply a selkie who had finally answered the call of the ocean. It is a profound testament to how we craft complex myths to soften the sharp edges of grief.

After Selkie’s performance, I travelled to her studio apartment where she showed me her recording set up in her bedroom where she is currently recording her upcoming EP, In Waves. On her unique sound she describes herself as “ambient-pop with doses of electronic folk”. When you listen to Selkie, her voice sounds Nordic or Icelandic – tapping into the selkie mythology or a familiar sound that feels older than present day.

Selkie’s pre-records her tracks whilst playing guitar and singing, doing a little vocal looping in her performance. Sharing her thoughts on writing and experiencing writer’s block when composing the unreleased ‘Swimming’ from her upcoming EP, she says “instead of following traditional song structures and production, it goes on it’s on path and by the end of the song goes inside itself.”

Music has always been a part of Selkie’s life. Studing songwriting in Berlin, she describes making music in segments that sometimes can take a year to piece together. She records at home with her guitar, pedal board and a computer with all the vocals her own. We chatted before her performance about how music is like clay, because sound is malleable; you can bend and shape sound:

“When I’m writing songs, whether it’s fitting lyrics and melodies together or creating sounds for the production, I will cut and stretch tiny pieces of a sound, bend the notes to craft the final shape of the music.

I never work with the idea of ‘let’s add a bass-line and a beat, now the harmonies, etc’. I build and craft different moments according to the journey I am on with the song, and sometimes I chip away parts to reveal new moments and shapes. Journey is a good way to describe how I feel when I write and produce. I feel my way through and follow something intangible to find out where the song wants to go. Exploring with it and coming out in different places. I let the music move me and when I’ve tapped into the song’s current, I let it carry me and travel with it to arrive at a destination.”

Selkie is currently wrapping up her EP In Waves for August release which will include her singles ‘Hours’ and ‘Heartspeak’. You can catch Selkie’s next performance a the mid-summer Solas Festival at Errol Park in Perthshire in June.