Ross smiles warmly. Time, space, and generations have clearly never worn away at that aspect of their identity. \u201cMy mum was born and raised in Motherwell; well, she immigrated when she was a teenager, but most of my family\u2019s still there. Both my grandparents were from Glasgow.\u201d I laugh at the stereotypical trope we\u2019re managing to brew, as I admit that my own mum also grew up near Motherwell.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, my god, wow!\u201d Ross exclaims, \u201cA small world. I suppose Scotland kind of is a small world.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re certainly not wrong, and it seems an apt place to begin as we open up into the microcosmic universe and influence of their\u00a0latest album,\u00a0I Can See The Future<\/em>. Spanning from traditional folk to jazz, the record is simultaneously Ross leaning into all areas of their life: their heritage, their foundations, but also their experimentalism. This manifests itself in areas like the \u201cCeltic influence in the fiddle lines and stuff, and there\u2019s as much of that as I could fit in every time I wanted something to have an air of nostalgia,\u201d they explained, before adding that incorporating a twist on the pop realm was \u201creally fun\u201d to \u201cput my songs into those settings and see how they married a little bit\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI like that the music industry has become more democratic\u201d.<\/p>\n Leith Ross<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The sonics only tell part of the story of where\u00a0I Can See The Future\u00a0<\/em>has branched to. Opening and returning to the song \u2018Grieving\u2019 as the penultimate track, it\u2019s clear Ross\u2019s thought process behind this is concentrated on the listener\u2019s experience as much as their own. \u201cMy idea was that if someone was listening to the record, like front to back in order, that it would inspire them to be present, to think about themselves in their life through the lens of the songs, but in a way that makes them really able to appreciate the revelations that they\u2019re coming to or the ways that they feel about people.\u201d<\/p>\n As they speak, it\u2019s more than evident that this is a process Ross has had to reckon with themself before they could package it out to the world. How does that feel then, putting your neck out on the line in the name of art? \u201cIt\u2019s an exercise of figuring out how to be OK with insane amounts of vulnerability, I suppose,\u201d they admit, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s mostly the emotional thing that I struggle with, the revealing of all my thoughts and feelings to the public. Yeah, sometimes I just have a little bit of a hard time with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Vulnerability and visibility on a mass scale is certainly something that the singer is more than familiar with now, four years on from their song \u2018We\u2019ll Never Have Sex\u2019 creating a tsunami on TikTok. But the rose-tinted naivety has worn off in large parts of the industry for all the relatively short time that social media success has dictated current music trends. The feelings everyone has are complicated, not least for Ross, who entered the storm and came out the other side.<\/p>\n They evidently don\u2019t have a concrete answer when it comes to their true perception of virality. \u201cOne thing that I\u2019m passionate about making clear, though, is that I like that the music industry has become more democratic in some senses,\u201d they muse. \u201cAny person can get online, post a song, and try to have a music career. That\u2019s pretty incredible, because the industry was pretty monopolised by labels not so long ago, but obviously it comes with the addition of\u00a0every single streaming service being evil. I was so lucky, but there\u2019s still general social bias that makes it harder for some people than others. But I like that it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, in a journey of bringing their music to the masses and all that comes with it, bigger production ventures were also at hand within\u00a0I Can See The Future<\/em>. Working with prolific pop producer Rostam was one thing. \u201cI\u2019ve been a fan of his for such a long time,\u201d Ross confesses, but it also meant taking leaps into new ventures within the sonic spectrum. The song \u2018What Are You Thinking?\u2019, a treasure trove of jazzy indulgence, is certainly nowhere near as reliant on the folk and pop realms that they have cited so far.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I especially listened to Nora Jones and Diana Krall when I was young, those slow, jazzy, beautiful ballads that had so much space in them. I\u2019ve just always had such a positive association with that feeling and with that music, and I really wanted to mimic that romantic drinking of red wine and making pasta in your cosy, orange-lit kitchen, kind of vibe,\u201d they say. To all intents and purposes, that sounds like a night sent from heaven, but don\u2019t be fooled. Despite the moments of warmth on the album, the darkness also most definitely still creeps, which is something that Ross has often gone to pains to express.<\/p>\n Returning to the narrative of the two \u2018Grieving\u2019 tracks, the singer said the double inclusion was purposeful to \u201crepresent the two different extremes of that emotion\u201d. You just have to overcome the challenge of traversing the complex palette of feelings that throws itself up in between. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of joy and stuff, but there\u2019s also a lot of misery and sadness and grief,\u201d they point out, which may be an obvious statement, but it equally evokes the notion of precisely how personal\u00a0I Can See The Future\u00a0<\/em>really is.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything in between is all written from my perspective. I\u2019m not pretending to be anyone else, and they\u2019re written as Leith about Leith,\u201d they note, creating a parallel between themselves and the experience they want to grant the listener. That\u2019s the most striking thing that emerges throughout my time chatting to Ross: they\u2019re not just viscerally present but also seem to fundamentally understand the increasingly lost art of human connection.<\/p>\n Zooming out on the bigger picture of the album\u2014bursting the bubble of the microcosm, if you will\u2014Ross sees what truly matters. \u201cI feel like people are often attached to this idea that musicians make magic, and that music comes from this kind of ether that isn\u2019t really sensical. I think that\u2019s what leads to us idolising musicians, [because] we feel like they\u2019ve just created something out of nothing, that it\u2019s kind of superhuman. But the thing that\u2019s most inspiring to me about music is that actually it is incredibly human; it\u2019s like one of the most human things you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, albums and musical explorations of fantasy and filmic worlds all have their place. But for Ross, the process is always going to be rooted in reality, even if that means exposing some of their most private and vulnerable truths in order to share it with the world. They seem more contented with this idea by the end of our conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best part is not the mysterious magic. The best part is that it\u2019s such a human endeavour that we all share.\u201d Baring your soul is never easy, but if Ross really can see into the future, it may well take them on a journey beyond their dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hate coming across like the Gen Z version of William Wallace to the people that I interview, but I also can\u2019t help myself from … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Music,](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/10\/Music-magic-and-microcosms-with-Leith-Ross-22Im-not-pretending-to-be-anyone-else22-Far-Out-Magazine-01-819x1024.jpg\")
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