Rock royalty from Will Oldham to Sean Lennon have played a part in propelling flaxen-haired singer-songwriter Kamila Thompson into the spotlight, but it was a handful of rogue boyfriends that proved to be most influential in the conception of her new album, Love Lies. “It’s a collection of personal outrages and misfortunes,” the London native laughs when asked about the inspiration behind her debut. “An amalgamation of, like, eight breakups.” 

Dedicated followers of English folk will know Kami by her lineage: she’s the daughter of divorced folk legends Richard and Linda Thompson, and sister to breakout folk rock artist Teddy. But the family business didn’t beckon until Oldham (aka Bonnie Prince Billy) asked her to tour with him in 2006, after hearing her sing at her father’s London Hammersmith gig. Four years later, the diminutive siren with the throaty, PJ Harvey-indebted delivery has finally unveiled her solo release – an emotionally raw, folk-tinged rock production featuring her father and brother, plus close friends Martha Wainwright and Sean Lennon. The songs revel in life’s darker corners: from the clip-clopping “Tick Tock”, an open-hearted inventory taken in the aftermath of lost love, to the guitar-led cautionary tale “Nice Cars”, which Thompson confides is about her mother. “I listened only to Nick Drake for a year; on paper you could say it’s the most depressing thing ever, but it never made me feel like that. It was just pretty – really pretty,” she says of her affinity for lyrical introspection. “My idea of depressing music is Coldplay. That’s depressing,” she adds. 

Next to her rock heroes (an eclectic group ranging from The Everly Brothers to the Kinks to Jeff Buckley), the 28-year-old is equally quick to rattle off her musical style icons, including Lykke Li (“She always looks amazing”) and Karen Elson (“I love her whole prairie rock thing—difficult to get away with unless you’re a supermodel…”). Her own closet is admittedly black-centric, with an “ironic old lady” bent, and stocked with accessories by McQueen, Charlotte Olympia and Chanel – she cites her three-year-old boots by the latter as her most prized sartorial possession: “They’re black and just above the ankle, done in sort of slouchy leather, with a little chain around the top. So. Cute. They have a sort of cowboy heel that give you that stomp; a wooden heel onstage is actually part of the deal.” To hear her rhapsodise about said investment piece, one is hard pressed to find evidence of the disillusioned songstress so evident in her music. “I was pretty miserable until I was 25; I’m much more reasonable now,” she explains, before deadpanning that a stylistic shift could be in the air: “Maybe I’ll write a really cheerful record next—a children’s album about dinosaurs and finger puppets.”