Matilda Clementine Isitt Cole is an English musician from
Brighton. The daughter of film director
Nigel Cole and the actress
Kate Isitt, she appeared in several of his works before mounting a music career and joining
Loud LDN.
Life and career
Early life and film career
Matilda Clementine Isitt Cole[1] was born in
Sussex,[2] though spent periods living in
Los Angeles[3] and
Camden Town[4] before moving to
Brighton.[2] Her mother is
Kate Isitt, an actress, and her father is
Nigel Cole,[5] a film director who had previously been married to
Sally Brampton,[6] and who played guitar and would buy egg-shaped shakers for her to play along with him.[4] She later attended
Dharma Primary School.[7] In 2010, she played Emily in Made in Dagenham, and in 2012 she played a bridesmaid in the Wedding Video,[8] both of which were directed by her father;[9] she later played Madeleine in his 2019 film short Wisteria Cottage.[5]
Music career
She realised she wanted to be a full-time musician aged seven after seeing
Miley Cyrus perform at
the O2 Arena, and wrote her first song in the car journey back to her hotel;[7] she later created a
YouTube account called "matilda cole vevo".[10] Aged sixteen, after putting a cover on
SoundCloud, she was messaged by a
London-based
talent manager, who took her on as a client,[7] and in March 2020, she withdrew from her
A-levels four months early, and signed a record deal.[11] In November 2020, she released "The Clouds",[12] a song about her teenage friendships and relationships[13] for which a music video was directed by Amy Becker-Burnett,[14] and then the following January, she released "Be There",[15] a song about extreme affection for someone to the point of
ego death.[16] In June 2021, she released Milk Teeth,[17] an EP written about her adolescence, with the title being a reference to
deciduous teeth.[18]
Cole then released a cover of
the Weeknd's "
The Hills", intended as a stopgap between EPs,[11] and then in September 2021, she released "Camden", a song about divorce,[19] which she had written during a writing session in
Copenhagen in October 2020[4] about her parents' separation at the beginning of the pandemic.[7] The following month, she released "Halloween", which she wrote after researching
Pagan and
Wiccan traditions around the
Samhain period[3] and about having to beg a partner to spend time with them and treat them properly,[20] and accompanied it with a music video set at a
Halloween house party.[21] In February 2022, she released "Again", about allowing herself to be repeatedly treated poorly, which was accompanied by a music video directed by Amy Becker-Burnett,[22] and then the following month she released The High Dive, an EP, which featured "Bite Down".[23]
Artistry
In a February 2022 interview with Clique Magazine, she cited
Lorde’s first album Pure Heroine as "a huge huge influence" on her, and additionally cited
Father John Misty,
the Blue Nile, and
Samia as influences;[24] the following month, in an interview with Wordplay Magazine, she stated that "the biggest influence" on her writing was from the way
Hozier wrote, and that she drew "a lot of influence" from the
folk and
rock music that her father had played when she was growing up.[10] Reviewing "Camden", Martha Storey of the Indiependent described Cole's vocals as "
Maggie Rogers-esque".[25] She is an original member of
Loud LDN,[26] a collective of London-based women and genderqueer musicians founded in May 2022.[27]