"It’s not really a geographical place, it’s a state of mind." That’s what Bridie Monds-Watson, AKA SOAK says about the name of her new album, Grimtown. Katie Donohoe met the Derry born singer songwriter in a café near Georges Street before she took off on tour.

Bridie’s ascent has been a spectacular one. Her 2015 debut album received critical acclaim, her music has been described as “a vivid portrait of teenage deep-thinking” by The Guardian. At the age of 18, she became one of the youngest ever nominees for the Mercury Prize and won the Choice Music Prize for Album Of The Year.

Juggling all of that with growing up gay in a small town, trying to establish a sense of identity has really inspired her latest work. Bridie tells me that this album was “born out of a year of depression and an identity crisis” that started when she came back to Derry after touring with her first album, Before We Forgot How to Dream.

“I spent so much of my life on tour as an adolescent where I was very susceptible and easily influenced, I was confused about everything.

“I was being labelled so many things and when you’re 13, labels are everything to you because you’re trying to find your tribe, you’re trying to see what you’re about, everything’s so brand new. At that age I was used to labelling myself. I knew I was gay and I knew roughly what I was into and that was inviting all these labels.

“Being a gay person from a small town, even though Derry in the grand scheme of Ireland is not that small, you’re in a smaller minority in that way. I got back to Derry after those tours and was like ‘if I live here forever I’m gonna die alone’ because I’m gonna have to really change what I’m into.”

Arriving at this crossroads, Bridie chose to change location and not her identity. She has been living in Manchester for over two years now. “I wanted to experience more cuisine, good transport links, shit like that, and meet people and have more friends.”

There is a duality and contrast in the tone of Grimtown. Happy lyrics are set against music that is sonically quite dark and vice versa. “I guess the way I’ve dealt with my own mental health was to make jokes about it and it makes people feel more comfortable and that it’s less of a serious thing. So the whole album process was trying to get the contrast right and create a spectrum of emotions and not ever be ‘too much’.”

Her music videos act as visual extensions of the album, creating the Grimtown world in different snippets. This storytelling and world building is done to great effect in the video for ‘Everybody Loves You’, directed by Joe Wilson.

“It’s a world I felt I’d been thrown into. The innocence of teenage drinking and stuff like that is lost when you’re going to house parties that are ketamine fuelled, not that I was, but that’s the environment that came to be as I grew up. I just wanted everything to reflect that underlying tone of uncertainty and discomfort."

Bridie speaks very passionately about her hopes for Derry. She has battled with fear in terms of lending her voice to political causes, but now feels very adamant that issues like marriage equality and bodily autonomy need to be discussed. “In time away from music and having time to reflect, I realised so many things. I just had this kind of interpretation that because everything was fine in my gay world and I had such a swell time with it that everybody else must be too and of course that’s not the way, but I was ignorant of that.

“Coming back on this album it’s something that I have been very adamant needs to be discussed. As great as it was for Southern Ireland in getting bodily autonomy for women and marriage equality, the rest of the world doesn’t recognise that Northern Ireland doesn’t have it, they just presume we do. So that is all the more reason to shout about it.” She sums up her views on Arlene Foster and the DUP saying, “They are literally dinosaurs in every sense of the word. Blows my mind.”

Bridie’s life experience has culminated in Grimtown, making it a beautiful coming-of-age story about the struggles of leaving teenage life and heading into adulthood. “I guess I cleaned myself of any label and called myself a ‘life trainee’ because that’s how I was describing the change of a teenager to an adult. “I felt like I was just thrown into that environment Everyone at that age is just completely overwhelmed and distraught for the majority because it’s just such a complicated time.

“When I was writing this record I was like, ‘surely no-one has ever been this sad before’ because you feel like that when you’re in that state. It’s that human connection element this time round on this album that I crave. I guess with my first album I spent a lot of time hiding behind a guitar and now I’m ready to be out there and I’m really excited.”

SOAK’s album ‘Grimtown’ is available now. SOAK will also be performing at the Body And Soul Festival in June. For more details on upcoming live dates, visit soakmusic.co.uk.