Singer-songwriter Rose Elinor Dougall finds herself inescapably drawn to the county where she grew up and took her formative steps into music. She cannot help but be inspired by the dramatic landscapes of Sussex, choosing the beauty and grandeur of Cuckmere Haven and Seven Sisters as locations for the photoshoot for her recent album A New Illusion.
Rose has spent the past 15 years touring the world, first with Brighton girl group The Pipettes and latterly as a solo artist and with superstar producer Mark Ronson. Although she is now based in London, she retreats to the Sussex countryside every few weeks. Lockdown was spent at her mother’s house in the countryside outside Lewes. It was a real antidote at a troubling time, but it is a journey she makes on a regular basis.
“Every few weeks I need to get out of London, come down and be among those different landscapes. I feel that’s where I belong. I feel very, very attached to the landscapes of Sussex. I’ve been going to the Ashdown Forest all my life. That’s a really important place for me. It’s a very different kind of landscape to the South Downs which I also spend a lot of time walking around.”
Rose moved to Brighton with her parents and brother Tom – guitarist in the band Toy – when she was 13. It was a period of musical discovery. She devoured her musician father Alastair’s large record collection, which included plenty of Sixties folk albums, while her mother was also a huge music fan. “I was never going to get away from it!” she laughs.
This story is from the September 2020 edition of Sussex Life.
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This story is from the September 2020 edition of Sussex Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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