Rose McDowall

Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the ’80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internet-age has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell, and her collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives.

As McDowall elucidates: “They’re real sad songs, about real life. I’ve had people come up to me to say I’d connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, ‘that’s power.’”

Cut With the Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988 and 1989 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. The record hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings and collaborations.