The early influences of Esther’s life have been political, literary and musical. With a European background which takes in Germany, Sweden, France, the UK and the Channel Islands, she draws on a complex tapestry.

The Channel Islands were her second home from the very beginning and Esther now lives in Jersey. She studied Social Anthropology at Sussex University in England out of the desire to explore collective cultural imagination and otherness.

After a Scandinavian tour with Maria McKee, Esther spent three years in Sweden resulting in the making of the album ‘The Other Country’ produced and recorded by Blues musician Brian Kramer.

These songs enact a search, a yearning to belong, to encounter and inhabit a soul-scape. This is a quest that most listeners growing up in today’s world of disenfranchisement and alienation will quickly recognise. There are no simple endings here, but there is much that speaks of holding true and resisting the things which denigrate the true passions of who we are.

Contributed by Hannah Balcam