INTRODUCING: Ellie Walker

With her new EP Balance, Cambridgeshire indie-folk songwriter Ellie Walker closes out 2025 with her most honest, intricate and emotionally expansive work to date. Across four singles released gradually over the year, she’s woven a portrait of modern life at its most chaotic, courageous and quietly hopeful. From jangly chamber-pop brightness to stark piano confessionals, Balance captures the push-and-pull of family life, mental health, forgiveness and romantic reckoning — all anchored by Ellie’s unmistakably pure vocals and her commitment to warmth over polish.

As she prepares for the EP launch show at The Plough, Shepreth on 12th December, Ellie opens up about the songs, their stories, and the creative reset that shaped this new chapter.

1. Balance unfolds over four singles released across a year. How did releasing the songs gradually shape the final EP, and did your relationship with the songs change as you lived with them over time?

I had originally planned to release all of the songs as singles at the beginning of the year, culminating in a full EP release in April, however after releasing 'Balance' in January, I decided to pause the rest of the singles and work on a full album instead, to hopefully release later on in 2025. But, as we all know, best laid plans often go awry, and I realised that there was no way I could write, record and release a whole album that quickly, and I really wanted to get these songs out into the world and share them with my listeners, whilst hopefully finding new ones as well. So, after sitting on the songs for the best part of 2025, I chose to release the remaining three singles over 3 months, with a full EP release in December. I think these songs sit really well together as a foursome, and I wanted to focus my attention on sharing them with the world rather than frantically trying to write and release a whole album and include them on that just because I thought that was the way it should be done; it felt really rushed, incongruous and inauthentic to shoe-horn them into an album just for the sake of it.

So here we are! My relationship with the songs has changed over the course of the year and I have found my love for them again, after a good chunk of the year when they were put on the back burner whilst I wrote new material. These are songs which journey through my family life, mental health, forgiveness and heartache, and each one is a little snippet into my song-writing journey and how I am evolving as a writer. These are the songs I am most proud of, and I love how they move through different genres from jangly indie-pop to darker, brooding folk. I have fallen back in love with these songs after neglecting them for a while, and it feels good to share them with the world.

2. Each track explores a different facet of modern life — from family chaos to mental health to romantic reckoning. Which song was the hardest to write emotionally, and which came the most naturally?

The song I found most heart-wrenching to write was 'One Day', as it was a very personal, painful look back into my past which I had buried deep. The story of Emma, the main character from the book of the same name, resonated very deeply with me as there are many parallels between her story and my own. After watching the Netflix adaptation, I was hit hard with the realisation that many of my early relationships were really detrimental to my own self-esteem, always being kept in the shadows and in secret. Thankfully, I am very happily married and these heartaches are firmly in the past, but it was painful to re-visit those feelings of rejection and loneliness, which I think come across loud and clear in the song.

The song which came most naturally was definitely 'Balance', as I sing about my family life and the give and take we all need in order to live together in harmony (more or less!). I absolutely loved including my own recorder playing on the track, a nod to my younger days, and the lyrics came very easily as I describe my busy family life. The jaunty tune reflects my own slightly chaotic family life, and I think it represents us very well through music!

3. Your sound blends indie-folk warmth with playful chamber-pop elements. What sparked the shift toward the brighter, more textured arrangements we hear on the title track, and how did your band influence that evolution?

My song-writing process usually begins with a snippet of hummed melody which is then developed into a fuller harmonic structure, and lyrics often come last. Whilst writing 'Balance', however, I started off on the ukulele rather than the piano, and the lyrics for the chorus were the starting point. This was of writing really changed the whole feel of the song from my usual piano-based sound, developing into a jangly indie-pop tune via the different instrumentation and my band's input. The bare bones of the song were started on ukulele, and the piano riff was added later along with the trumpets and recorders. My band flesh out my songs by adding their own sparkle, new harmonic ideas and changes to the structure, and my sound would be very different without them!

4. ‘One Day’ and ‘Let Me Go’ both draw inspiration from external stories — One Day and Happy Valley. What draws you to writing from other characters’ perspectives, and how do you weave your own experiences into those narratives?

I took part in a song-writing workshop a while back, and the was given the prompt to write a song which starts with the chorus, and is inspired by one of the final scenes of the TV show 'Happy Valley' - no spoilers, but it's a pretty highly charged, impactful and emotionally driven scene, and it was most definitely inspiring! My song 'Let Me Go' was born from this challenge; I find that using these kinds of prompts can really help get over writers' block, and can offer new perspectives and experiences which then influence your song writing. I found myself writing quite literally (Tommy Lee Royce says 'I forgive you' during the scene, and he is looking at photos of his child, which are directly referenced in the lyrics), which was helpful when building the song as often lyrics are where I struggle most. I found that I held a lot of empathy towards Tommy, which surprised me due to his character's actions in the show, and this came across in the sweetness of the song; I thought the music would be loud, angry and outraged, but instead it emerged as gentle, understanding and sweet, words I would definitely not have associated with Tommy's character prior to writing the song! As I mentioned before, 'One Day' holds many parallels to my own story, and I was inspired to write the song as a way of healing my younger self, and acknowledging the experiences and relationships that did me harm.

I found the process of writing the song hugely therapeutic, and I often turn to song-writing in this way; to process, and to heal. Making music after difficult or challenging experiences has always been a huge part of what I do, and this song was no exception.

5. You’ve spoken about valuing honesty over polish in your music. How did that ethos guide the production choices on the EP, and what do you hope listeners feel when they sit with these songs from start to finish?

I am drawn mostly to live music, live albums, sparse production and those whose voices are unique; hearing a voice and knowing instantly it is them (think Bjork, Florence Welch, Amy Winehouse), rather than a generic pop-star who is so over-produced it's difficult to identify their voice from any other. I actively choose not to add a lot of auto-tune, effects or adjustments to my vocals, save perhaps a bit of reverb when needed, and I think this makes my voice unique and easily identifiable.

My voice is often described as 'pure', and 'clear', and I think this comes from my classical background (I have sung in choirs from a young age, and studied voice at university), and this timbre adds to the honest, un-filtered sound I aim for in my music. This ethos guides my production choices through decisions to use acoustic instruments as much as possible, to not include anything on the recordings that could not be performed live, and to keep effects, embellishments and adjustments to the bare minimum to keep the 'live' feel of the music. I'm proud that the Balance EP very much fulfils this ethos, and I can't wait to perform all the songs live at the EP launch - the challenge was re-producing the layered harmonies at the end of 'One Day', but I've managed to rope everyone in the band into singing a line, so we are good to go! Ultimately, in the age of AI, I think it's more important than ever to stay true to ourselves as artists and give a true reflection of who we really are, in real life.

Sometimes that may mean that a note is a little sharp, a beat a millisecond out of time, or a word slightly mis-pronounced, but I would far rather make music that has imperfections and truly represents me, rather than an over-filtered production that lacks any personality. I hope this helps the listener to feel closer to me as an artist and able to connect to the music in a personal way, and aim to take them on a journey with me through the music so they can become fully immersed, rather than listening from the side-lines.