South African-born singer-songwriter tan sholto returns with a deeply personal new chapter on her new EP ‘christine’. Across five delicately arranged tracks, the project explores the complex emotional terrain of growing up, told through the intertwined perspectives of a mother and daughter. Through gentle acoustic arrangements, emotive strings, and softly layered harmonies, tan crafts a reflective collection that captures the misunderstandings, tenderness, and unspoken love that often shape family relationships.
At the heart of ‘christine’ lies a tribute to her mother as a woman navigating grief, resilience, and the quiet determination to build a better life. The EP’s most intimate moment arrives with ‘tash’, a song shaped by more than a decade of reflection following the loss of tan’s father in childhood. Revisiting that period from an adult perspective, the track offers a poignant meditation on grief, empathy, and the enduring strength of maternal love.
With support from outlets such as BBC Introducing, TIMES Radio, and Mystic Sons, tan sholto has steadily built a reputation for songwriting that invites listeners to pause and reflect. We caught up with her to discuss the deeply personal inspiration behind ‘christine’, the stories woven into its songs, and how the project marks an important step in her evolving artistic journey.
–
Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in music?
I grew up in South Africa, so I spent all of my childhood outside in the outdoors with no shoes on, mud everywhere, sun shining, so I had a really amazing start to life because it was very much rooted in nature and just spending all of my time in it. It’s really impacted the way that I see the world today. I’m very in awe of all of life’s simple things and what makes us into who we are, which I think feeds a lot into my music. I was very interested in music growing up. My dad had a lot of instruments because he was self-taught and played piano, guitar, and a whole bunch of other things. He had all of these instruments around the house, so I would just pick them up and play and kind of just enjoy the sound without knowing that there was any right or wrong way to play it or to enjoy it or how it should be. I would just spend time with music and it was just, I think, a really great way to be introduced to it without the rules, without structure, so that it could be really free and just take shape in whatever form it wanted to be.
Who are your biggest musical influences and how have they shaped your sound?
I listen to a very broad range of genres and artists, so a lot of different things influence me, and it may not be a specific genre. It might be the way that the vocalist pronounces their words, and it inspires me to write a lyric or create a sound from that. But at the moment, I am loving Billie Martin and November Ultra. They have a really unique way of keeping things simple, but doing it in such a way that it can be a very passive listening experience, or it can be a really deep, emotional one. And I think having that option is a really unique thing to give your audience member as an artist, that it doesn’t always need to be this heavy thing, that it can be something light and passive without having to pay much attention.
Was there a specific moment or experience that made you decide to pursue music seriously?
There absolutely was. I originally went to university to study philosophy. I’m a thinker of a person, so I observe a lot. I take the world in around me and I question everything and I spend most of my time just thinking about things. So I wanted to study philosophy to essentially try and find some answers to the questions that I had. And when I started to do that, it just didn’t feed my soul. It wasn’t what I was, you know, passionate about what. So I decided halfway through the first year that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. I dropped out and I decided that I was going to study music. I knew that I loved to sing, but I had very limited knowledge of music theory. But I somewhere just made it happen. I managed to get in somewhere and I learned all the fundamentals of what I know today there and just diving into every opportunity that I could since then. And it’s just a constant journey of getting better and better.
Can you walk us through your typical songwriting process?
I write a lot of poetry and phrases that come to mind or that really speak to me. It could be as simple as like an ‘eyelash on a cheek’, and I find it really inspiring. So usually that’s where I start, you know, I’m a lyricist and a writer first before I am a musician because that’s where I spent my life. I write everything down, I journal every day, I think in the pages of my books. So that always, maybe not always, but majority of the time that’s what comes first. And then I
will usually pick up my guitar and choose something that either contradicts what I’ve just written or just cushions it very, very softly to create a song. Very rarely does it start with the guitar. It has happened and it does happen. And when it does, it’s a riff that I come up with or like a little line or maybe two chords together that inspire me to write something more about it.
How do you find inspiration for your music and lyrics?
I find a lot of inspiration in the really simple things of life, like spending time with family, making a cup of tea for your loved one, the way that, the sun shines through a window, and it sounds really cheesy and maybe a bit silly, but when you really stop and be present in your life, just the most simplest things can just be breathtaking, you know? The way that someone smiles and their cheek becomes a little bit pinker or their smile curves a little bit, whatever it is, it’s the uniqueness of who we are as individuals that really give me what I’d like to write and what my lyrics are, I guess.
What themes or messages do you hope listeners take away from your music?
The biggest thing that I write with in mind is that life is just so, so good, it is so beautiful. And it’s in the painful parts that we really find ourselves or find the things that matter the most to us. And it’s just about taking a moment to really stand in that place, good or bad, and fully witness it, fully be present. And I’m not saying that it doesn’t really hurt when you’re in those bad places or that it makes it any easier, but I think that is what I’d like to impart to people who really listen to my music, is just take that moment. Take that chance, take the courage that you have, no matter how small, and do the thing that you wanna do.
What challenges have you faced as an emerging artist in the music industry?
It’s been really challenging moving from a different continent to a different culture, a different way of life, and then at the same time trying to make a music career in a very small county where there are very limited industry opportunities. So as well as having to learn a whole new, you know, way of communication and the way that people talk or interact with one another, I was also trying to make a career and make my mark. So it’s been quite hard when you’re from a very small place, making that big mark can feel insurmountable sometimes.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of your musical journey so far?
I think it’s the people that I get to meet along the way, whether it’s the ones that I’m working with in the studio or the ones who are listening to my music, I’ve made some really amazing friends and colleagues just from a shared interest of music. And I’ve had amazing people come up to me and say, I saw this thing that you did and this is what it changed for me. And I think a lot of the time, as an artist, you forget that your music actually goes somewhere and someone is consuming it in their own individual way. So sometimes it’s really jarring to have someone give that to you who you don’t know because you kind of just live in this little world and you don’t know where it goes after that. I think that’s a really, really cool thing. The craziest thing happened to me the other day, I was at a restaurant in Cirencester called Amoré Mio’s and I was just there for a dinner with my partner and without them knowing it, they were playing my music. I was talking to my partner and all of a sudden I recognised the sounds that were filling the room and, they had no idea who I was. And it was just a really nice moment, even if nobody knows who I am or I’m not recognised, they are consuming something that I’ve made and they’re enjoying it. And it was really, it was really cool to be a part of that. Like the people who work there not realising it was me and playing my songs a couple of times and, you know, the people in the space got to enjoy it and I was just kind of taking it all in, it was really cool.
How do you stay true to yourself and your artistry in a constantly evolving industry?
I am an introvert through and through, so I spend a lot of time alone and writing in a space that feels like mine. So I make sure that the environment I’m in is really reflective of who I am in that period of my life. For example, at the minute, I’ve got rugs all over the floor so I can sit on the floor, I’ve got plants around me and comfortable places to sit so that I can really
immerse myself in writing. I think that’s one of the best ways I stay grounded, and I think also staying off of social media. As crazy as it is in today’s world, you know, it really forms a narrative of how things should be or how they should look. It’s about the art, it’s about the music, that’s what really matters.
What can fans expect from you in the near future? Any upcoming projects or tours?
This project’s gonna be quite some time to finish, so I’m focusing on live shows this year, with maybe some releases as well. The most notable shows coming up are the Underground Festival on the 28th of March and Valley Festival on the 2nd of August. I wanna kind of spend some time writing and just focusing on the live experience for a little while, so that I can actually be out in the world seeing people enjoy my music so that I can start a new project and give them more.
Where do you see yourself and your music career in the next five years?
I really want to do an album. It’s really hard to release an album in today’s landscape, I think, unless you have a massive audience base. I think an album would be really, really cool to release. Maybe a tour around it, some merch that I make myself, because I really love to make things, anything handmade is just so much more special and so much more meaningful, so I think that would be really cool to give not just something sonically, but something physical people could take home with them. I think just a lot of new music, a lot of writing, a lot of sharing more of myself and my sound into the world.
–
Listen to tan sholto’s new EP ‘christine’ below.
