Gabrielle Aplin

English singer/songwriter Gabrielle Aplin had already assembled a body of independently issued EPs before her evocative interpretation of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “The Power of Love” ascended to the top of the British charts in the final months of 2012. Yet it was her own buoyant folk-pop compositions that propelled her first long-player, English Rain, to gold status in the U.K. and into charts across multiple territories in 2013. Throughout the rest of the decade she sustained a steady release schedule that included the follow-up album Light Up the Dark, an array of singles, EPs, and seasonal offerings, while also achieving unexpected popularity in Brazil through the success of “Home.” After establishing her own imprint she further expanded her sonic palette on the pop-oriented Dear Happy in 2020. By the close of 2022, Aplin had shifted toward a stripped-down writing method and begun issuing tracks intended for her upcoming fourth album, Phosphorescent.

Raised in the modest Wiltshire village of Sutton Benger, Aplin picked up the guitar at age eleven and soon added piano to her instrumental skills. Her artistic growth was chronicled on a YouTube channel filled with wide-ranging covers of artists including Bon Iver, Bob Dylan, and Katy Perry. The accumulating views drew widespread attention and encouraged her to begin crafting original songs, which appeared on her early self-released EPs Acoustic EP (2010), Never Fade (2011), and Home (2012). These recordings showcased her preference for candid, emotionally direct material and introduced listeners to her emerging folk sensibility. Following the arrival of Never Fade, she received an invitation to perform at BBC’s Maida Vale studios for the BBC Introducing… sessions, further elevating her profile.

Additional online visibility, combined with airplay on BBC Radio 1 and a headlining tour, led Aplin to sign with Parlophone and start developing material for her first full-length project. During this phase her widely circulated cover of “The Power of Love” reached number one in the U.K. after being featured in a holiday campaign for retailer John Lewis. In 2013 she issued English Rain, which mixed newly written tracks with the title song from her earlier Home EP; the album peaked at number two on the British charts. To mark the 2014 American release of the English Rain EP she embarked on her inaugural North American tour. Her second studio album, Light Up the Dark, followed in September 2015. In 2016 the track “Home” became a phenomenon in Brazil after its inclusion in the soap opera Totalmente Demais, prompting Aplin to appear in the season finale. That December she released the Miss You EP. After leaving Parlophone she founded the independent Never Fade Records and put out the Avalon EP in October 2017. The next year she issued the single “My Mistake” and teamed with Welsh singer Hannah Grace for the holiday EP December.

The buoyant single “Nothing Really Matters” surfaced in 2019 ahead of her next studio effort, the pop-focused Dear Happy, which arrived in 2020 and reached number 25 on the U.K. albums chart. Like many performers, Aplin’s productivity dipped amid the global pandemic, with only the 2021 release “When the Lights Go Out” and the seasonal single “Just Like Christmas” marking her output that year. After moving to Somerset she found a comfortable rhythm, composing new material for its own sake and away from external expectations. Across 2022, tracks such as the airy “Skylight” and the intimate acoustic piece “Don’t Know What I Want” signaled this fresh approach and were earmarked for her fourth album, Phosphorescent, scheduled for 2023.