“I wrote a lot on piano,” says Claire, of the songs on The Wringer. “My limited playing forced me to keep things simple. Lyrically, it was inspired by my reflections on who I am and what really matters: the people we love, how we love them and how they love us. The chaos of the past few years put a strain on lots of important relationships, and I experienced some of the uglier sides of love, but luckily came out the other side better off. I tried to write as honestly as I could, not hiding behind big conceptual themes or fictional characters: properly writing from the heart.”

Martha Ffion made her debut on Lost Map in 2015 with the single ‘No Applause’. Her critically acclaimed debut album of charming storytelling indie-pop Sunday Best (“chock-full of understated pleasures” ★★★★ – The Skinny) was released via Turnstile Records in 2018, and subsequently nominated for the Scottish Album of the Year Award. Claire returned to Lost Map in 2019 with the single ‘Kennedy Hair’, followed by the album Nights to Forget, a bold and exciting departure from her previous work, embracing her love of envelope-pushing contemporary pop, full of deeply personal reflections on loss, letting go, looking forward and the futility of nostalgia (“a new direction and a sign of great things to come” – Roddy Hart, BBC Radio Scotland). It was supplemented in November 2020 by Captured On Cassette, a limited-edition cassette release collecting live sessions, covers, a remix, and home recorded demos.

By combining the best qualities of her two previous albums – the intuitive guitar pop classicism of Sunday Best and Nights to Forget’s deep interrogation of the ideas Claire wants to project through her music, and the kind of songwriter she wants to be – The Wringer elevates Martha Ffion’s craft to a whole new level. Blending influences old a new, from Dusty Springfield and Steely Dan to Aldous Harding and Rilo Kiley, while drawing on the timeless melodic accessibility of traditional Irish music, it’s a pure and unfettered extension of Claire’s inner-self – all the wit, wisdom, vulnerabilities, hopes, fears, loves and losses that make her who she is; a record that truly lays it on the line. In contrast to Nights to Forget, which was painstakingly constructed layer by layer over a long period of time, The Wringer is all about live takes in the room, Claire on guitar, vocals and keys, together with her band – Joe Rattray on bass, Beth Chalmers on keys and backing vocals, Craig Angus (of fellow Lost Map artists Savage Mansion) on guitar and Lewis Orr (also of Savage Mansion) on drums. 

As soon as Claire visited Julie McLarnon’s analogue studio in Newry, situated only 10 miles from her hometown of Warrenpoint, and complete with donkeys – she was smitten. “Julie and I really hit it off,” says Claire, “both having Derry Girls-esque upbringings and a shared connection to Manchester. Recording to tape, embracing the human mistakes and capturing the songs in an authentic way also felt right.” Once sessions in the summer of 2022 were complete, a delicate process of editing and refinement began back in Glasgow, together with Paul Savage (The Delgados / Mogwai / Twilight Sad). The Wringer’s slim nine songs were distilled to their barest essence. “Apparently, John Parish leaves heaps on the cutting room floor in the mixing process,” says Claire, “I also ended up doing a fair bit of that.”

Glossy indie-disco strut ‘The Man’ is written for Claire’s father (“a very cool man with some amazing stories to tell”). ‘Fool’s Gold’ ruminates on relationships and what makes them worth fighting for, with added Dusty Springfield sass and Supremes-style backing vocals. ‘What They Said About You’ is Claire’s “reinterpreted” take on a song by her friend Richard Stratton, a former member of the band Poor Things (together with Craig Angus), fed through the lo-fi filter of early Rilo Kiley to killer effect.

Stripped bare and soulful with a sleazy Steely Dan feel, ‘Gentle’ is Claire’s playful exercise in pushing the limits of what she can get away with admitting in song lyric (including a sidecrush on JFK: “I’ve got a thing for Catholic presidents”). The beautiful ‘In Your Love’ is a softy psychedelic country ballad about motherhood, channelling After the Goldrush era Neil Young. Inspired by the messy majesty of The Pogues, show-stopping closer ‘Taxi’ is Claire’s attempt to “write a song that you could sing at a pub lock-in on Christmas Eve,” she says. “Everyone round the piano spilling their pints. It felt like it appropriately wrapped up the album’s theme of love, unpolished but true.”