Selkie – inWaves EP

So, have I been looking forward to hearing Selkie’s debut EP? Absolutely. I feel as though she has been slowly revealing inWaves to us one beautiful song at a time. ‘Hours’ was first, and I remember being fascinated by the restless beats moving beneath a voice that seemed to exist in several places at once. ‘Heartspeak’ followed with a softer, more intimate side to her music, then ‘Gold’ arrived carrying that wonderful promise that “we begin again.” Each single gave us another piece of the story and left plenty tucked away for the EP itself.

Then came the chance to see Selkie perform at The Old Hairdressers in Glasgow alongside Marina Yozora. That was a spellbinding night, and hearing these songs live was exhilarating. Selkie gave every loop, breath and vocal layer the space it needed. It was fascinating watching her take a room full of people and having them transfixed on every note. By the end of her set, I was even more curious about where these songs would lead when heard together.

So yes, I have been looking forward to this one. inWaves is Selkie’s debut EP, though it arrives after a long gestation period. These six songs have travelled through Glasgow, Berlin and Japan, growing around public pianos, bedroom studios, a portable recording setup and live performances where unfinished ideas were allowed to keep changing. They remained with Selkie through poor health, uncertain periods and several changes of home. You can hear all of that history in the finished record, especially in the care she gives her most important instrument, her voice.

Let’s hit play and see what appears.

The EP opens with ‘Dream Wheels’. A recording of waves lapping against the shore places you beside the water as glimmering electronics slowly gather around it. Her voice takes its time arriving, and when it does, there are no words to guide your thoughts. I love that choice. You are free to follow the sound of each note, hear one vocal loop call towards another and notice how the human voice gradually becomes part of the environment. Each loop seems to suggest the next movement, and every new layer appears as a response to what came before. It feels like awareness returning a little at a time. Like waking up. As an opening, ‘Dream Wheels’ asks very little of you beyond settling in, taking a breath and allowing Selkie’s world to come into focus.

‘Swimming’ carries us away from the shore and into the first full song. Selkie’s voice moves closer, eerily doubled at times with a baritone version, while retaining the textural quality established in ‘Dream Wheels’. The arrangement leaves generous spaces between its electronic details, and that room makes you conscious of every breath. Swimming depends upon breath, rhythm and trust in your body, all ideas that sit at the centre of Selkie’s return to music. Her delivery feels measured and close, with each phrase placed carefully inside the arrangement. This is where the EP title starts making emotional sense. Progress arrives in repeated movements, with every return carrying you off somewhere new. ‘Swimming’ feels calm on the surface, and the strength beneath it comes from hearing Selkie trust the next breath enough to take it.

I have lived with ‘Hours’ for a while now, and hearing it within the EP has made me appreciate it all over again. The song began in 2019 as Selkie considered the hope and ache of maintaining a relationship across continents. Its meaning grew as distance became part of daily life for people everywhere, giving those original feelings a much wider reach. The music holds several impressions of time at once. Frantic beats suggest the clock racing ahead, then a steadier pulse returns to keep everything connected. Selkie layers her vocals across that rhythmic activity, and you begin to feel as though Glasgow, Berlin and Japan are all present in the same moment. There is plenty happening in the production, with small electronic details flashing around the vocal, yet every sound earns its place. Coming after ‘Swimming’, it also continues the EP’s reliance on rhythm as a way of moving through uncertainty. You keep breathing, you keep reaching out and you keep finding the other person whenever you can.

Then we arrive at ‘Gold’, the song that first made the full emotional intention of inWaves clear to me. Inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese practice of repairing broken objects with precious metal, it carries the idea that every visible mark can become part of what comes next. Fine electric guitar lines move through the arrangement as flickering electronics appear around Selkie’s lead vocal. The whole thing has a fragile beauty, then the layered voices arrive and give the refrain a wonderful sense of shared strength. “We begin again” already felt special when I reviewed the single. Here, after songs about returning to language, trusting the body and keeping love alive across distance, it lands with even more feeling. ‘Gold’ sits at the centre of the EP as its clearest statement of renewal, and those three words stay with you long after the final harmony fades.

‘Heartspeak’ takes that renewed openness and turns it towards another person. Bell toned synthesisers surround Selkie’s close vocal, with reverb and altered voices making certain phrases feel like thoughts passing between two people before either has found the language to explain them. The song carries memories of swimming at night among bioluminescent plankton, and you can hear something of those brief flashes in the arrangement. Individual sounds glow, disappear and return elsewhere, giving the music a gentle sense of wonder. Selkie sings with such tenderness here. It also feels like a lovely companion to ‘Hours’. One song considers the effort required to maintain closeness across distance, and the other explores the instinctive understanding that makes the effort worthwhile. I loved ‘Heartspeak’ as a single. Hearing it here makes it feel even closer.

After all that patience, memory and careful rebuilding, ‘Lick the Sun’ closes the EP with a wee spark in its step. Selkie wrote the song while emerging from a long Scottish winter, and you can hear the energy beginning to return. Treated guitar, beats and spectral vocal layers give the track a physical presence that suits its appetite for movement. The rhythm encourages your body to respond, the guitar brings warmth into the arrangement and Selkie’s voice reaches further outward with every new layer. The title makes me grin. It brings sunlight close enough to taste and turns the simple act of noticing the world into a celebration. Selkie described the song as carrying “a little fire growing in your belly,” and that fire spreads through the closing minutes. Curiosity returns. Desire returns. The urge to move, feel and take part in life returns. The voice that first appeared without words beside the water in ‘Dream Wheels’ now sounds ready to greet whatever waits beyond the final note. That gives inWaves a beautiful emotional arc, beginning with someone carefully finding her way back to herself and ending with her face turned towards the light.

What stays with me after inWaves is the trust Selkie places in gradual change. These songs took years to reach their final forms, and you can hear that history in every pause, repeated phrase and returning sound. Her voice, guitar, electronics and environmental recordings share the space with an intimacy that rewards close attention. Having followed three of these tracks as singles and then seen Selkie perform, I thought I had a fair idea of what her debut might hold. Hearing all six together reveals how closely they have always been speaking to one another. Fragility gives way to trust; distance encourages new forms of connection and the first quiet signs of recovery grow into a renewed appetite for life. Selkie has allowed this music to arrive in its own time, and inWaves carries you forward with every return.

inWaves is released independently on 28 August 2026. You can check it out over on the Selkie Bandcamp page.

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