Finlay Birch
Scottish songwriter Finlay Birch reflects on emotional distance, evolving soundscapes, and creative growth, offering insight into “Inside Your Mind” and the deeply personal journey behind his forthcoming debut album.
1. Inside Your Mind explores the tension between emotional closeness and distance—what first sparked the idea behind this song, and how did it evolve over time?
Inside Your Mind came from that feeling of wanting to truly understand someone beyond what they choose to show you. I wrote it during a period where I felt very close to someone emotionally, but at the same time there was still this distance I couldn’t quite bridge. The song started very simply on guitar, almost like a stream of thought, and over time it became more layered emotionally. As we worked on it in the studio, it shifted from being quite intimate and inward-looking into something bigger and more cinematic, but the core feeling stayed the same.
2. You mentioned wanting the track to feel like it’s “constantly moving.” How did you approach the arrangement and production to achieve that sense of momentum and emotional build?
From the start, I didn’t want the track to ever feel static. Even in quieter moments, I wanted there to be this sense that it was always pushing forward emotionally. A lot of that came through layering — adding textures gradually, building harmonies, bringing instruments in and out in ways that subtly changed the atmosphere. Dylan was brilliant at helping shape that. We focused a lot on dynamics and pacing so the song keeps unfolding rather than arriving too early. I wanted it to feel a bit like a tide constantly moving underneath everything.
3. The song was written three years ago but released now—how has your relationship with it changed between writing it in Greenock and recording it on the Isle of Mull?
I think I understood the song differently by the time we recorded it. When I wrote it in Greenock three years ago, it felt very immediate and personal — almost like I was trying to work something out in real time. Recording it on Mull gave me a bit more distance from it emotionally, and I think that allowed me to approach it with more perspective. Mull has also become such an important creative place for me, so naturally the atmosphere of the island seeped into the recording. It became less about a single moment and more about a wider feeling of connection, memory and trying to understand people.
4. Working with Dylan Cooper, whose background spans major pop and alternative artists, how did his production style influence or expand your sound on this track?
Dylan brought such a strong instinct for atmosphere and emotion to the track. What I really value about him is that even though he’s worked across major pop projects and alternative music, he never approaches a song in an overly commercial way — it’s always about serving the emotion first. He encouraged me to think more expansively about sound and texture, and helped take something that began quite stripped back into something much more immersive. A lot of the small details in the production came from long conversations about how we wanted the song to feel rather than just how we wanted it to sound.
5. Your upcoming album Weight Will Unwind brings together songs written over nearly a decade. How do you balance older material with newer perspectives while keeping the album cohesive?
That was probably one of the biggest challenges with the album. Some of the songs were written almost ten years ago, while others are much more recent, so naturally I’ve changed a lot as a person and songwriter during that time. I think what kept it cohesive was that there are certain themes that have always stayed with me — place, memory, relationships, longing, change. Even though the writing styles evolved, those emotional threads connect everything together. Recording the album within a relatively focused period also helped unify it sonically, because all the songs were filtered through the same creative environment and collaborations.
6. Having transitioned from DIY bedroom-pop to a more expansive, collaborative sound, how have Scotland’s landscapes and creative communities shaped your artistic identity?
Scotland has shaped my music massively, both in terms of landscape and community. Living and working on Mull especially has changed the way I think about creativity. There’s a certain openness and stillness here that naturally finds its way into the music. I think the landscapes encourage reflection, and there’s also a really strong sense of community and collaboration in the arts scene that’s influenced me a lot. Earlier on, I made music very independently in a bedroom-pop way because that was all I really had access to, but over time I became much more interested in collaboration and creating something that felt bigger and more human. Working with other musicians and artists in Scotland has definitely pushed me to trust that side of myself more.