Putting her feelings into music for the world to hear has become Gwen Dolyn’s ultimate survival strategy. Ahead of the release of her new record, X-RATED feelings, the singer-songwriter speaks candidly about the uncomfortable themes that have inspired it.
Fearlessly expressive, Gwen Dolyn – originally from Berlin and now based in Chemnitz – doesn’t hold back on her new album, X-RATED feelings, out this month. On the record, Dolyn explores themes centred around female desire and previously repressed emotions. It’s a deeply tender and honest work, featuring synth and krautrock influences, delivered with meticulous electronic craftsmanship.
It’s not my intention to make a societal comment, it’s just something I had to get out.
This album arrives just a year after her release as part of the duo Tränen, her pop project with Steffen Israel, guitarist for the indie rock band Kraftklub, and two years after her collaborative record with Toyboys. As we sit down with the prolific songwriter to discuss the “x-rated” themes she explores on her latest album, it becomes clear that Dolyn speaks from the heart, both on and off the record.
What would you say are the principal themes of the record?
Maybe sadness or anger and impatience. It’s called X-RATED feelings because I think the feelings that I talk about are not the ones that sound like, “Oh my God, you’re so cute, I’m in love” et cetera. A lot of people perceive it to be weird when a woman sings about lust or perversion, or a certain type of anger or resentment, or resentment towards other women or towards society. These feelings are somehow ‘x-rated’, and those are the ones that I sing about.
Do you think female desire is a taboo topic?
When a female expresses desire, they have to present it in a certain way. In movies it’s always a younger and good-looking woman, who has a desire for a specific male character. She can never just pick who she likes, and that’s okay. And if she does, it has to be some anti-hero type. And female desire is not just tied to sexual themes, but it can also be applied to things like eating, for example.
It’s still so offensive as a woman to be very hungry and eat at irregular hours or eat huge amounts of fatty food. Everything has to happen in a certain framework, otherwise people are going to be offended. When I say “hi” to people and behave in a well-educated way, which I am, or I look them in the eye and shake their hand, people get offended by something. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to men that often.
How did you approach the record? Did you know you wanted to write an album dealing with the themes you just described or did it just happen?
It usually just starts with me and a guitar on my sofa being kind of depressed and procrastinating. The first song I wrote [for this album] was ‘EngelBoy’, and the last song was ‘F.u.K’, which means Frau und Kind [“woman and child”]. When I wrote ‘EngelBoy’ I was thinking about a particular person, but perception changes with age. When I was a teenager, I was never into men that were my age. As I got a bit older, things are a bit different now, but believe me, it doesn’t get any better.
So why not have both the pretty and the bullshit, considering either way you’re going to have to deal with it. ‘F.u.K’ is about somebody I had a crush on but couldn’t reach. I was in a position where I was in love with somebody who already had two children. I thought, “What would be the best solution in this situation?” [Probably] not raise his kids or end his marriage.
There is also one song called ‘After you left my body’. It’s one of the two English songs on the album, and it’s about when I had to make the decision to end a pregnancy. It has a really deep meaning that still touches me in a special way when I sing it. I feel like these kinds of things are only really talked about in a medical sense. There’s always been such a fight about it being legal or not, even in Germany, and if a woman can even make that decision, or if society should make it for her, or if men should make it for her, or doctors. It’s not my intention to make a societal comment, it’s just something I had to get out.
I now have a really deep urge to just be honest with myself and be honest with people I meet.
Is it difficult to put your innermost thoughts and feelings on a record for everybody to hear?
It’s become my survival strategy to live like this. There’s this song on the album about me being this well-educated brat that comes from a conservative background. I was raised in a certain way, and I was raised not to [wear my heart on my sleeve], and not to talk about myself too much, not to offend people with my desires, my wishes, thoughts and feelings. And it crushed me. It was just always something that confined me in a way that made me really unhappy. I now have a really deep urge to just be honest with myself and be honest with people I meet. It’s tough when people reject what I do or reject me, but I feel like I have to – I just need to – do it this way.
Was there a turning point in your life that inspired this realisation?
As a teenager, I think people didn’t perceive me as particularly well-educated because I was a punk. I had a mohawk and piercings and everything, but inside, it was a different story. I tried working in normal jobs. And then Covid came and I released my first DIY EP. I spent the whole time with my ex-boyfriend and his children trying to somehow make enough money to just work on music. And then I got pregnant. And when I had to end that pregnancy because my relationship was falling apart and the world was falling apart, I said, to myself, fuck it. I cannot try to please everyone. I need to try to please myself first. And it won’t feel very pleasurable at all times, but at least it has something to do with me. And that was the start of everything, and here we are.
- X-RATED feelings is out now.
