Flush with awards after The Lost Daughter and Cabaret made her a star, Buckley has made musical alchemy with guitarist Butler. They discuss why being raw and unguarded is essential for great art
In a crowded recording studio in London, a woman’s voice unfurls from speakers, filling every atom in the air. Beyond a glass wall she’s barely visible in semi-darkness, surrounded by three musicians on piano, trumpet and viola. The song, Seven Red Rose Tattoos, is plaintive and stained with regret in the manner of vintage jazz; her voice is colossal and intimate, deep and soaring. We just don’t hear voices like this any more, somehow echoing the liquid vibrato of Scott Walker with the fathomless richness of what Karen Carpenter called her “basement”. Studio crew and colleagues are transfixed. “It set our homes on fire, watch my memories fall away,” Jessie Buckley sings. “I have seven red rose tattoos, for each of us that’s left / there’s no longer a native country, I’m on a quest to find love again.”
She and Bernard Butler – her recent musical collaborator and the man playing today’s spectral piano – are recording a moody black-and-white performance video. After they finish, collective voices declare: “So beautiful; smashed it!” Buckley, 32, could be a 90s indie or grunge kid, with her new short bob, clasps arranged on top. She dives in for a post-Covid crusher-hug, a vibrant, relaxed, unselfconscious personality given to loud honks of laughter. “I missed a hug!” she hoots as our bosoms squash together. Butler, 51 this May Day but still with the extravagantly floppy fringe he had in the 90s, offers a sturdy handshake, welcoming and intense.
