Pem

Don’t miss Pem live at the Lodge in Manchester this March – tickets on sale Thursday at 10am!

Multidisciplinary artist, songwriter and gardener Pem blends the organic with the stylised in work that feels both earthy and elusive. Her ethereal alt-balladry draws on soul and folk influences, weaving analogue crackles, synth and string textures with field recordings. Psychology, choreography and myth-making shape her musical world as deeply as melody itself. While her songs often rest on the raw bedrock of voice with guitar or piano, Pem’s hypnotic tremolo — a rare and precise vocal technique — lends an uncanny, esoteric quality.

Much of her writing begins outdoors: long days gardening, drifting thoughts, and instinctive “pocket sketches” captured on a handheld recorder later evolve into full compositions. Onstage, she is mesmeric and detached, her stylised intonation and stratospheric vocals suggesting serenity stretched to its limits.

Her lyricism echoes a lineage from Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan to Cocteau Twins and Björk, drawing on cyclicism, planets and personal mythology. In 2024 she released cloud work, a layered meditation on grief after her father’s passing, earning critical acclaim, 1.6 million streams, and support from The Guardian, 6Music, Rolling Stone UK and more.

Raised near Basingstoke and now in Bristol, Pem explores liminal suburban spaces in her latest work, including the 2025 release M4 Windy, while performing alongside artists such as The New Eves, Honeyglaze and The Last Dinner Party.