Cosmo Sheldrake

An English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer whose loop-driven collages of found sounds, eccentric environments, and whimsical or absurd lyrics echo They Might Be Giants filtered through Syd Barrett, Cosmo Sheldrake assembles an expansive palette that ranges from banjo, loop station, keyboards, and double bass to drums, penny whistle, sousaphone, and accordion. His path has blended invention with eccentricity, surfacing first in the 2018 full-length The Much Much How How and I before extending the reach of Baroque pop and folktronica across Wake Up Calls in 2020 and Eye to the Ear in 2024. Beyond solo appearances at home and abroad, he has opened for kindred spirits such as Johnny Flynn, the Sussex Wit, and the Gentle Mystics while also scoring works for both screen and stage.

London-born to parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake and voice teacher Jill Purce—with brother Merlin later becoming a noted author and biologist—Sheldrake entered the public eye in 2013 after a TEDx performance in New York City and subsequent vocal improvisation studies with Bobby McFerrin. His first single, “The Moss,” appeared the next year on Transgressive Records, followed in 2015 by the EP Pelicans We. The 2018 album The Much Much How How and I yielded the charting single “Come Along,” which soundtracked iPhone campaigns in both the U.S. and U.K. Two years afterward came Wake Up Calls, constructed entirely from field recordings of endangered British birds. Sheldrake turned his attention seaward with the 2023 EP Wild Wet World and examined the “urgency and possibilities of our times” on the 2024 album Eye to the Ear.