"Composite is a song we’re hoping many people will identify with, about the experience of drifting between two homes. Even if you’ve never moved where you live, there can be times when home doesn’t quite feel like home anymore, and for expats, like us, that is quite amplified." – Sarah Fletcher, lead singer and lyricist

Feathers, Wood ‘N’ String release their new single Composite on April 30th, 2019. This is their first single of the year and was born while they were still in Adelaide, South Australia, over Christmas 2018. The song shares the driving, heavy alternative rock style of their 2018 EP, whilst exploring a new song structure.

Adelaide born and bred husband-wife duo Sarah and Lloyd Fletcher show the influence of their move halfway across the world to Southampton, UK more than ever in this new track, which directly explores the experience of being expats and having two homes, and at the same time no dominant home.

What inspired the musical aspects of Composite?

Lloyd says: “I was listening to a lot of songs at the time that had slightly different structures, hitting hard with a simplified chorus and following a different arrangement to the usual sort of intro, verse, chorus pattern. We had started to get into a bit too much of a routine with the structure of our songs so we wanted to try something a bit different like that. We also knew that we wanted both of us singing in all of our songs in 2019. Being a duo, it’s something obvious that we haven’t tried much in the past, so I have worked hard on strengthening my voice and learning singing techniques to get the sound we want.

We’d just started to include synth a bit more in the last few tracks on our 2018 EP, and I thought it would be good to bring that out a bit in this song and see what happens if we make it a bit more obvious. Overall, though, I didn’t start work on this song with a plan in mind. It was during the downtime after releasing Reasons to Exist and I was just playing with my guitar and loop pedal as a way to relax. Our trip ‘home’ to Adelaide was drawing to an end so I guess you could say I was in a bit of an ambivalent mood, looking forward to getting back to Southampton friends but sad to be leaving family and friends in Adelaide. The riff just grew out of that session where I was playing to chill out and then Sarah heard it and was inspired straight away.”

What does ‘Composite’ refer to as a title and what inspired the lyrics?

Sarah says: “We had been having a few discussions towards the end of that visit to Adelaide about how both our homes were starting to feel a little bit foreign in one way or another. Some friends we’d drifted apart from a little bit in Adelaide, or things that had changed while we were gone made us feel strange there, and at the same time we’re still not connected to a lot of people or activities in Southampton yet in the same way we used to be to people in Adelaide, so there’s a weird sense of not quite fitting anywhere - not quite being ‘at home’ in either home, as it were. We started to talk about writing a song about this experience, because it’s something we felt a lot of people would have been through at some point in their lives. Even a small move or a change in the environment ‘at home’ could make someone feel like they no longer quite fit in the places they live in.

The title Composite came to us because composites are something Lloyd looks at in his research - basically materials that are made up of more than one thing. So we feel that we are composite people - made up of more than one set of roots. Sometimes this can make us more interesting, and other times it makes us feel that we don’t wholly belong in either place. I feel this way about a lot of categories in life besides where ‘home’ is - there’s often a sense of ‘you are one of us or one of them and you can’t be both.’ I often get confronted with these lists where not only is there no appropriate tick box for me, but I’m only allowed to choose one, and I belong to multiple. In so many parts of our lives, people want us to be tick boxes. To be just one thing or another. We’re not that. We’re composite. Sometimes people treat you like you aren’t allowed to be composite, and equate that with belonging to no one, having no ‘team’ or being nothing because you aren’t wholly one thing. In the song I say ‘I am no one’s,’ and I guess you could interpret that both positively and negatively. But everyone is composite, they just try so hard to fit the categories put in from of them, because society often makes us feel we have to fit just one of those. All of us belong to more than one ‘team.’ We want people to talk to us about their experiences of trying to find ‘home’ and what that is, and in what ways they are composite too. We want to be on more than one team together. We think we are all composite when it comes down to it.”

Where can we hear the song and join in the discussion?

Composite will be out on all major platforms on April 30th, which is the anniversary of Lloyd and Sarah’s first date 15 years ago, when their adventure together began. Visit Feathers, Wood ‘N’ String’s social media pages for the Songlink on the day. Feathers, Wood ‘N’ String will be chatting on social media with you in the lead up and on the day about what ‘home’ means to you, and about belonging. If you’d like to join our composite ‘team,’ feel free to come and share about your experiences of being composite - Sarah and Lloyd would love to hear from you.