Where creativity meets connection
Growing up, Phildel had to navigate an abusive childhood and an environment where music was banned. Throughout her work, the Chinese-Irish dream-pop musician creates a new reality and the freedom to be who she truly is.
Recognition for her music has started to gather pace. You’re as likely to encounter it soundtracking adverts for global brands as popping up on the coolest playlists. Her achievements include winning the International Songwriting Competition with Moonsea, while she was awarded a Cannes Lion Trophy in 2020 her song Beside You was used in a Verzion commercial.
Phildel has loved music since she was a child. It was when she was only 8 that music was “banned” in her house, but it stayed with her during school: “I used to play piano there, kept my love for it alive that way”. For 9 years it continued, until she left, bought second-hand equipment and got started on her music journey.
I doubt, young 8-year-old Phildel would have believed that she would one day be featured in Women Composers Piano Anthology by Faber Music Publishing. Neither to have her single track QI with 300+ million streams alone.
In 2014, her debut album, The Disappearance of the Girl, gave her control and a space to come to terms with her experience: “It felt so cathartic to write that whole album. Going from a position of weakness and vulnerability to a position of strength.” The album itself, though dark, is a beautiful exploration of her life.
“The Wolf, for example,” she says, “addresses the person who was a really difficult character for me growing up.”
The first lyric says it all, “And you once said, ‘I wish you were dead, you sinner’”. A true hook to a story you don’t want to put down, or stop listening to.
“It’s nice because in writing that song, I could assume a position of strength and power. I had a voice in that song to express my anger.”
It was then, that Phildel realised how healing and transformative music could be. And she kept writing and releasing her music from that day on.
Her most recent album, Into the Woods, was released last year and takes a great deal of inspiration metaphysical journeys through nature. From nature walks as a young girl and reading Wordsworth’s The Prelude…
“I thought, wow, you feel so many things, loneliness, isolation, but you also feel the companionship of the nature around you. It ebbs and flows and there’s this sublime beauty that elevates you. And this is exactly how I feel when I walk through nature.”
Into the Woods, as an album, is an enchanting set of songs. Each track highlights a special connection Phildel has with nature. Monolith in particular is a dark, cinematic mystery of this girl wandering upon a forest monolith. Tensions arise throughout the song as there’s something entirely otherworldly about the stone. Something stronger and more than human reaches out and touches you, dragging you into it’s song and story.
“Connect with something greater than ourselves,” Phildel says, when considering her walks amongst nature.
As a genre, Dream-Pop offers a specific set of elements. There is a clear emphasis on atmospheric soundscapes and ethereal voices. With Into the Woods, Phildel platformed her use of Japanese Taiko drums, because “they have a nice, organic texture”. “It was about creating various instrumental elements that evoked feelings of nature,” she says.
“There’s a nature reserve right where I live. I go there every day. I just go to clear my mind and enjoy the views. It takes my breath away. It’s my favourite place.”
After recently moving to Brighton and exploring the local environment, Phildel has come to love the coast, downland and woodlands within the Sussex Biosphere right on her doorstep.
But, there’s more to Phildel’s inspirations than just nature. When she considers melodies and lyrics, she will sit at her piano and access an unconscious part of her thinking. It’s a “trance-like state,” she says, “Normally there'll be quite a strong melodic fragment that will come through that my inner ear will just sort of hear”. She describes her whole process to be “organic”, bringing in fragments of melodies she composes to later review and find out their meanings. Whereas, she explains how her peers in the music scene describe their own processes of wanting a song sound a specific way.
Phildel’s music operates on a number of different psychological levels. Many of them are symbolic and she admits to sometimes not realising the meaning until years later, like with her song The Deep.
“It had a whole bunch of like really abstract symbols coming up within it. And it wasn't for years that I was able to look back and say, ‘yeah, I was going through a betrayal theme in my life at that time.’ But I just couldn’t see it”.
Other than music, she has a strong passion for psychology. As a woman with ADHD, she finds it “incredible” how unique everyone is: “We all have such a unique neurology, such a unique way of experiencing the world around us”.
Her ADHD diagnosis partly inspired her last single, Wild as Sin, which came out in May. It also discussed the tumultuousness of love and the pain of severance.
“How it can feel like you wound each other in the process of being in love and when you split up, it’s painful for both parties,” Phildel offers, “I wanted to capture the intensity of all those feelings.”
This month sees the release of her next track, Monument to Life, which dissects the emotions surrounding isolation and loneliness to great effect.
“It’s a bit sad,” she ponders, “No, it’s not sad at all… It’s real.” She goes on to tell me about the importance of being able to get diagnosed for ADHD now. Being the one of the first will always make you feel alone and cut off. It can make you feel different from everyone else, but Phildel wants to assure everyone that they aren’t alone. Through songs like Wild as Sin and Monument to Life, Phildel shows that diversity or standing solidarity should be regarded as a strength.
Despite the darkness in some of the themes Phildel explores, there’s still plenty of joy behind it all. She finds “connecting with the darkest parts of myself a wonderfully positive experience,” while recognising that we all harbour some of the anger she expresses in her music.
She tells me that society too often tells women to “repress that anger” or to “not rock the boat”. Her work has become a place to feel without judgement. A way to be true to herself. She says having this outlet means she’s able to calmly go through her everyday life. That she’s much more “centred” than she would be if she didn’t have music.
Looking to the future, Phildel has dreams of performing in the Royal Albert Hall. For now, her tour next month promises a hometown show at Brighton’s Komedia Studio on Wed 3 Sept, before heading to The Grace in London the following day.
She tells me if you love music, then you should just go out and do it. “You don’t have to be Beyonce. You can make a really good income doing music just on your own. You don’t have to be the biggest star in the world.” She confesses she used to have a crippling fear of performing live. Obviously, working as a professional musician doesn’t fit well with such anxieties. “I realized I would have to confront that fear. I thought, ‘what if I just start crying and I completely crumble?’ I did my first open mic night at university and I did start crying and I did crumble. All the worst-case scenario stuff happened. But it will never be that hard again. I fully embraced that level of vulnerability….”
Phildel releases Monument to Life on Fri 29 Aug 2025. She performs at Brighton’s Komedia on Wed 3 Sept and London’s The Grace on Thurs 4 Sept, as part of her 2025 UK tour.
Mae Clapton
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