After attending a songwriting retreat in Scotland, Maaike Siegerist left her life in Rotterdam behind to study music in the UK. She’d already been in several bands, in genres ranging from acoustic jazz to progressive metal, and felt inspired to make music her main focus. Armed with her acoustic guitar, she moved to Bath, where she recorded and self-produced her debut album Born Before the Wind. Tom Robinson handpicked several of its tracks for airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music, praising the closing track ‘Keep It in the Dark’ for its “delicate vocal, poised production, gorgeous chord changes.” Maaike moved to Bristol in 2018, and has since won the songwriting competitions of Glastonbury FM and the University of the West of England. “I love using unusual chords and choosing the right instruments to build sonic worlds, to match what I’m writing about,” Maaike says. “I want every song to sound different.” “I write songs about things that make a big impression on me – from travels and love, to social justice and, more recently, ecology and endangered species.”