On the outside, looking in

Crafting stories out of other people's lives and embracing a new, classic Americana sound, Gia Ford is emerging as a unique and timeless artist

- WILL RICHARDS

‘I find it really boring to write about myself,” says Gia Ford. Instead, the singer and songwriter uses her songs to dive deep into the stories of others, embellishing them and adding her own perspective but using external narratives as her jumping-off point.

Signing to Dirty Hit for 2020 debut EP Murder in the Dark, Ford made dark alt-pop filled with 808s and electronic-leaning sonics. Lurking in the background, though, was a lifelong love of Americana and sweeping rock soundscapes, and when she parted with the label due to creative differences and went independent, this facet of her artistry came to the fore.

On recent singles from her debut album, due out in mid-2024, she uses literature as a springboard from which to explore others’ stories. This is best shown on new single ‘Falling in Love Again’, which tells the story of her friend’s father, who mourned the death of his wife by asking his new partner to dress up in her clothes. “That’s so uncomfortable, but also really beautiful and sad,” she reflects of the story. “It’s about those strange ways that people grieve, and how they aren’t often very comfortable to talk about [them]. He was trying to express something, and he didn’t know how to do it. It just leaked out into life the way these things do.”