Celeste is dialling in from the back of a taxi, her face revealed in fleeting glimpses by passing street lights. It feels an apt introduction to the British-Jamaican soul-jazz singer, whose cinematic second album, Woman Of Faces, examines the multitudes that exist within her identity.
Doubling down on the timeless sounds of her number one debut, Not Your Muse, the nine-song set is a bold exploration of melancholic, symphonic jazz powered by opulent strings and the Oscar-nominated singer’s velvety vibrato. It’s also an exercise in self-actualisation, inspired by four of the most challenging years of her life so far – a period where soaring professional success was marred by heartbreak, grief and self-doubt. As she puts it, “When you’re stripped back to a shell, you really have to figure out how you get back to the base level of who you are, in the hope you can gain some knowledge to be a better, stronger version of yourself.”
Here, she shares her musical obsessions, style icons, worst vices and most treasured possessions – and explains why nobody needs to own a TV.
1. Hi Celeste, where are you?
I’m on my way home to east London. I’ve been having an errands day.
2. What errands have you run?
I went to this nightclub in Shaftesbury Avenue to talk about trying to put on a night there, and then I went to get a picture framed.
3. What’s the picture?
It’s a picture I found in Paris of a lady lying on some kind of animal rug, looking at a bag of diamonds. It’s from the cutting room floor of the 1920s silent movie era.
4. Is it fair to say you’ve been through more than most in the period since your last album?
I think that’s probably inevitable in the time it’s taken to finish this album: I was 25 when I wrote my first album, and now I’m 31. I think the positive of going through difficult scenarios is that you have a chance to regain a sense of who you truly are, because the alternative is being so broken and so erased that you remain that way. Both of my musical journeys in writing albums have been about finding a way to stabilise myself through the expression of music.
5. Do you think great art has to come from a place of pain?
I don’t think it has to. More than [being about] pain, it’s about recognising that someone has integrity and that there’s intellectual or emotional substance within their work … But there’s definitely this self-fulfilling prophecy for female artists about having to live in turmoil – experiencing abuse, longing, loneliness or depression – simply to have a voice in the current landscape of contemporary music. I don’t feel like I am in that headspace anymore so I really want to offer an alternative.
“There’s definitely this self-fulfilling prophecy for female artists about having to live in turmoil … I don’t feel like I am in that headspace anymore so I really want to offer an alternative” – Celeste
6. What do you need to create?
The most important thing is a period of time where you’re living your life and absorbing and understanding the temperament of the world that surrounds you. And then I guess I need a piano and my voice to be working that day.
7. What were your cultural reference points for this record?
I knew I wanted it to be orchestral, and at the end of 2021 I was invited to see the ballet Raymonda at the London Coliseum. I’d never been to something like that before but I really connected with the story, and from where I was sitting I could also see the orchestra pit so I was observing and learning from the physicality of these musicians. Maybe a week or two later, I went to work with my friend Matt Maltese, and I played him this teeny little clip of the ballet I’d recorded. That’s where On With The Show came from.
8. How would you sum up the essence of Woman of Faces?
It’s about strength, intuition and recognising your own self-worth. And it’s about the heart too.
9. Who or what is your current musical obsession?
Rosalía. Her new album [Lux] has annihilated any other album that will exist for probably the next ten to 20 years.
10. What song do you wish you had written?
Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. There’s obviously countless poetic, meaningful pieces of music, but I feel like I can do that. Whereas I never really grew up listening to pop music, so I never really understood what my interpretation of pop would or should be.
11. What’s your favourite ever lyric?
At some point it was probably something from Leonard Cohen’s Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye, but Nina Simone’s cover of Janis Ian’s Stars at the Montreux Jazz Festival literally sticks me in the gut. It’s the line, “Some make it when they’re young / Before the world has done its dirty job.”
12. How would you sum up your personal style?
Eclectic. There’s so much that I love across many different eras so it’s all about dressing to accommodate the feeling that I have inside that day. I think that’s a lot of what Woman of Faces is about – accepting that you are many different things at once, and you don’t always have to choose one way to exist to appease others. Growing up, I was always encouraged by my mum to be myself entirely, whether other people got it or not.
13. Who is your style icon?
At the moment, Grace Jones. And Bianca Jagger’s my forever icon.
14. Who’s your favourite designer at the moment?
I’m a big fan of Alessandro Michele – what he’s doing now at Valentino and what he did at Gucci. He’s always been so kind and generous to me, and I wore his designs for my Oscars performance in 2021. I always love Dries Van Noten. There’s so much consistency in the depth of colour and quality of fabric and their embellishments. And I am really a fan of Sean McGirr at Alexander McQueen, so I hope that I get to wear more of that in the future for performances.
What is your biggest vice? “Shopping, food and sex” – Celeste
15. What’s your most prized possession?
My dad passed away when I was 16, and I kept a shirt of his that had poppy seeds in the pocket because I just felt like that was like a real sign of his life.
16. What’s your current favourite TV show?
I don't have a TV.
17. What’s your most controversial opinion, aside from the fact that you don’t need a TV?
I mean, I don’t think this is controversial anymore, but I don’t watch the news, don’t watch television, and don’t watch videos on TikTok and Instagram that pop up every three seconds.
18. What is your biggest vice?
Shopping, food and sex.
19. What outstanding ambitions do you have?
I really want to get into making a score or a full scale composition for a film.
20. What’s your favourite word?
Not a word, but I have a parting phrase that I really like: be lucky.
Women of Faces by Celeste is out now.
