Poppy Ackroyd is back with new single “Liminal”, the track is off her forthcoming album Liminal, out June 5th via One Little Independent Records (Björk, Bad Breeding). The return of the violin is central to the album’s expressive power. Having not played it extensively for several years, Ackroyd found the experience of layering string parts unexpectedly moving.

The album was created in close proximity to nature, another first for Ackroyd. Her studio now sits within her home, backing onto ancient woodland. This environment subtly permeates the record, particularly in the quieter tracks where space and resonance play a central role. The cover artwork reflects this setting; a photograph taken by Ackroyd from her studio window on Christmas morning.

Liminal was written unusually quickly for Ackroyd, composed over a three-month period in which the core structures and musical ideas were laid out. Recording took place shortly after, once she had moved into a new studio space. Piano and violin improvisations were captured alongside scored material, then carefully edited over time. This process of sifting through improvisations to find small, human moments has always been part of Ackroyd’s approach, but here she chose to leave more of the raw material intact, preserving its cathartic qualities.

“In the last three years everyone I loved most in the world needed me, all at once,” she explains. “There has been new life and death, heartbreak and many other things that are not my stories to tell. I have also moved across the country to a part of the world I have never lived in before.”

Although the album emerged from an exceptionally difficult time in her life, it is guided by a quiet sense of resolve. Ackroyd describes listening to the album while running and feeling herself almost dancing along to it, discovering a joy that was not always present while writing. “I had such a chaotic few years, but the only way to cope was to allow things to be messy,” she says. “Embracing the messy and imperfect but still getting things done. I decided to apply this approach to my music making and I found that I still maintain the same attention to detail but without the pressure, and I fell in love with making music again in a whole new way.”

As with her previous releases, Ackroyd wrote, performed, recorded, mixed, and produced the album herself, with mastering by Matouš Godík and layout and design by Ruth Keating. Ackroyd has long taken an active role in shaping the visual identity of her records, designing, or creating the artwork for most of her releases. With ‘Liminal’, she contributes a cover photograph for the first time.

“There is this amazing feeling you get when you play with another musician that you know really really well, but when you are playing alongside yourself it’s quite powerful,” she explains. “With the violin you have control over the whole length of the note in a way that you don’t when you’re playing piano. It feels like you can say more. Like singing.”

That wider world continues to resonate through her work. Ackroyd’s music has featured in countless documentaries and dance productions, including with New York City Ballet, and in theatre, where the National Theatre used ‘The Calm Before’ as the opening music for The Seagull. Her collaboration with Ainslie Henderson, Shackle, won Best British Film at the London International Animation Festival.

Poppy Ackroyd
Liminal
Track list
One Little Independent

In The Mist
Shimmer
Continuum
For Those Who Wait
The Unknown
Drift
Weightless
Between Two Worlds

pre-order Liminal by Poppy Ackroyd HERE