Made while living with a chronic disability, the producer-vocalist’s esoteric streams of consciousness mark her out as a major new voice
John Glacier is someone who knows the importance of privacy. She says she’s “20,000 years old” when we meet over drinks in a
London hotel; her
Instagram bio reads “I have no name nor number”, and the icy-blokey name she performs under is intentionally deceptive. But in person she is open and friendly, with an unguarded demeanour. “I have no fucking life,” she jokes, deadpan. “I’m like: ‘Yay, something to do today!’”
In July, she released Shiloh: Lost for Words, a widely lauded debut mixtape full of conversational, stream-of-consciousness raps over twitchy lo-fi beats. It’s deeply introspective, mixing in religious references and diary-like scenes from her life, with genius wordplay casually thrown in: “Can’t chat to me about grindin’ / Push more lines than Pusha T on a full eclipse, I’m all-nighting”, a beautifully unfolding nest of references to rap duo Clipse on Icing.