“Writing is about being understood, music is therapy.” This is a remark Ailbhe Reddy makes about her debut album, Personal History, and it comes with experience and knowledge to back it up. Before she set about writing the album, Reddy spent a year studying psychotherapy, which feeds into the wise observations and evaluations on her songs. Each track on the album is about Reddy’s relationship with a different person, something that is punctuated by the long silences that come at the end of each song. Reddy doesn’t rush from one conversation to another; she says her piece, lays out her worries, calls out injustices, and lets it settle for a few important seconds before moving onto the next topic.
If anything, this is just good therapeutic practice. It can be all too easy to want to vomit all the grievances one has experienced when sitting opposite your therapist. Constructive self-help and healing comes from addressing each point head-on and exploring it, and Reddy seems to approach her songwriting this way. Pared down from 18 original demos, Reddy presents 10 tracks that never tip over into being self-indulgent or petty. The heartache, the confusion, the self-doubt, and the love all feel real and lived-in. Reddy is a relatable and important voice for a generation of youth with unheard and unaddressed mental health issues, and Personal History is a testament to the power of therapy, healing, and getting help.
Though Reddy’s words feel inherently personal, there is plenty for all listeners to be familiar with: the bombardment of distress that comes from seeing your ex on social media (“Looking Happy”); the fatigue of dating and having to share your stories over and over (“Personal History”); long distance relationships (“Time Difference”); and the destructive warmth of depression that leaves you unable to be productive (“Self Improvement”). It helps too that Reddy is a concise lyricist: observational and never muddying her words with too much metaphor or falling into trite clichés. “I love the face you make / as if to say this is a mistake,” she offers on the rain-soaked bare piano ballad “Walk Away”. “I can’t make it stop / Just turn it off,” she pleads to both herself and the world over the peppy garage punk of “Looking Happy”, trying hard not to get sucked into reading into people’s faces in pictures posted online.
On “Between Your Teeth” she hides a coming out story (or the struggles of one waiting to happen) under a thin veil of unspoken words. “Just to hear you speak / the words between your teeth,” Reddy urges, trying to find honesty amidst the frustration of overthinking and misreading signals. Loneliness seeps through the glow of nimble guitar work and on-edge drumming of “Time Difference”. “I am so lonely,” she sings, isolated on tour as she describes the scene of a busy Glasgow street below her. “Phone calls are never enough / I miss your touch,” she summarises, capturing the plea of our modern age, struggling through long distance relationships across different time zones.
Personal History reaches its peak after the midway point with the title track. Here Reddy paints a beautiful scene of normality and the love that can exist in such a state, weaving an ode to commitment (if not settling down). “Let’s fall into routine / The romance of watching TV,” she details, remembering the power of being able to live comfortably with someone. “It’s true intimacy / It’s security.” She touches on the influence another person’s taste can have on us, and on trying to find escape from heartbreak through friends, alcohol, and parties, and the song seems ready to wrap up pleasingly enough after three minutes. Reddy has more to add though, and in the coda she declares, “I don’t wanna go on dates / And hear personal history / I don’t wanna share my own / Unless it’s you listening,” with increasing urgency as guitar and drums crash into a cathartic release. There’s therapy in singing, but there’s also therapy in just shouting out after lost love.
Heavier moments like this contrast all the better against frailer moments of self-doubt or quiet assuredness. “I’m trying my best to make this make sense,” she apologetically sings on opening track “Failing”, talking about instances of broken communication. It’s anthemic but never grandiose, like the doubt is rooted in to the song to stop it getting away from itself. At the other end of the album is “Late Bloomer”, which is contrastingly stark in its bareness. “I’m just a late bloomer / You’re not backing a loser,” she sings atop frail electric guitar chords in a quiet proclamation of self-confidence. It would make for a suitable end point to the album, but Reddy has one last relationship to address and one last conversation to have – and that’s with herself.
Final track “Self Improvement” details a depressive state, describing a scene of listlessness that all too many will be familiar with. Reddy seems set to linger in this state as synths burble and warmly start enveloping the track, but instead she breaks through the cloud with a burst of guitar. “I spent my 20s trying to accept me,” she issues to the world, no longer willing to linger in this state of self-doubt. “You soften the descent / through long talks / and self-improvement.” Reddy has the tools and is ready to use them. It’s a statement to the power of conversation and communication, of self-reflection and openness. But most importantly, “Self Improvement” – as well as the whole of Personal History – is a testament to hope. Loneliness, anxiety, and doubt can be staved off through finding the right therapy. Music is Reddy’s therapy, and thanks to her accomplished debut, it’s also likely to be many others’ therapy too.
