“We have the same handwriting!” Amber Bain announces after taking one look at my illegible scrawl. We share the same, deliberate tactic of writing as erratically as possible so that no one else could decipher our notetaking (should they get a glance at it). A sense of secrecy has followed Bain since the start of her career, when at first, her androgynous indie vocals left a question mark over her gender. At one point, industry conspiracy theorists even believed her music was a side project of The 1975’s Matty Healy.
The mystery of her identity was fuelled by her ambiguous moniker, “The Japanese House”, referencing the Cornish holiday home she would visit with her family as a child. Almost a decade later, I wonder if the now 27-year-old ever wishes she could go back to being faceless? “No. I didn’t want it to become a gimmick. I never want to be walking around with a wig on my face or a motorcycle helmet, it’s nice to put your person into it”, she explains, her blonde bob falling in her face.
