“I will talk to the river”

Following the successful release of the first South Shore single, Ballad of Rats Bay, Medwayish are now supporting their crowdfunder, where the band will sing your name, for their first album, Chatham Skies. Steven met singer-songwriter Rachel Lowrie at her home to discuss how the band came together, what an Ashen Key is, and what her relationship is with the River Medway.

What bands are you a member of? 
At the moment, the Ashen Keys and South Shore. 
I do my solo stuff, just me and my ukulele, and there is a little EP on Bandcamp under my name. I did some singing with Stuart Turner on Scow,. and with These Guilty Men on The Quiet One and with The Senior Service on A Little More Time. 

What instruments do you play? 
Singing is my main instrument. I play guitar. I say ‘play'. It's loosely self-taught, both guitar and ukulele. I had saxophone lessons, and I got to grade three on the flute. I've had a go on a cornet and try to learn the bass now as well. 

All of the projects you mentioned, with the exception of the Ashen Keys, are part of the Stuart Turner Venn diagram. How did you first come to work with Stuart? 
I love that, the Stuart Turner Venn diagram. 
That was through Roy Smith. He used to put a night on with different lineups, and then there was a bit of an open mic bit called Seasonally Affected. I did talk my way in, or I got invited to do a joint thing with Stuart? It worked. It was really fun. 
Stuart's an amazing person to work with, or, because it's not work, to play with. He’s so positive, and I know that I owe a lot to him for the experiences that I've had. 

What can you tell us about the new album Chatham Skies?
I'm really incredibly proud. It is nine songs written by me, about my Medway stories, and when we perform the songs live, it's like going on a journey through Medway. Walk us through the streets. The tenth song is a song that Nick [Rice] wrote. Nick had most of this song already, and then we had a bit of a songwriting session together and finished it. It felt so lovely, and it's different. Nick has such a good indie pop sensibility that adds in so nicely. Then the 11th song is Dance Me to the End of Love, which is only going to be on the digital release because it won't fit on the vinyl. That's the song that I've sung for years, in various bits and bobs. But we did it in December at The Ship when we were supporting the [Singing] Loins and various people came up to Stuart and said, “You've got to record that.” So we did, and I really love it.
The arrangements are very much done by the band. I write the lyrics and the melody and the chords, but the arrangements are very much band arrangements, which is fun. Dark Way was really exciting. I wrote that on the ukulele and Stuart totally rearranged that. Now it starts with bass and him playing like this EBow line on guitar. It's fucking wild. That's why it’s interesting working with people in a band, because I would never have come up with that at all. 

Ballad of Rats Bay has become quite anthemic.
Yes! 

Ballad of Rats Bay, by South Shore

track by South Shore

South ShoreBandcamp New & Notable Jul 16, 2026

Why was that selected as your first release? 
Hannah in the Ashen Keys. I played it solo at an Ashen Keys gig, and she said, “If you ever do a solo project, that would be your single.” I played it before South Shore played it, and it definitely felt like it had weight to it. And then out of the songs on the album, we just all agreed that that one, in my memory, it feels very much a collective decision that had a weight, had a certain energy, that felt like it wanted to go out front first.

The river has the potential to bring in wisdom and knowledge from distant lands

When you present the song, you talk about the whole idea of the song is about you having a conversation with the river. Where did that come from?
I remember really distinctly in 2012, I was in a period of my life where if I went to the river, the river would comfort me. My kids were quite small, three and six. And, you know, it's fucking… It's hard. Single parenting, it's hard. It's amazing, and it's hard, especially when I was having moments of feeling quite restless and unsettled and me and the kids would go for walks quite often. We'd really often go to riverside. I remember for myself walking down by Wouldham and down by Borstal and just really having a sense for... I want to say the personhood of the river. It became very automatic for me to have a conversation with the river. That was not a stretch. And I will talk to the river. I really like that part of Sun Pier and round there. Maybe it's because we were doing the River Sessions there, but just being there had a real magnetic weight to it for me. And I felt almost like the layers of history of the river has, how much has come in on the river. The river, she flows. She flows so far. It's so easy to get a real narrow perspective and think, 'Oh my God, this is all it is.' But the river has the potential to bring in wisdom and knowledge from distant lands. So it makes sense to ask her, to have a conversation with them when things feel like they're not working or they're really difficult. 

Has faith played a part in your life? 
That's a very interesting question. So, yes, it has. My parents were both… I would describe growing up as very much fundamentalist Christianity, and from when I was three to when I was eight, I went to a quote-unquote private Christian school, called The Cedars, which was unique, and I only realised that I wasn't going to hell in my 20s. 
That that was even a possibility. It was so there, and I had a lot of curious experiences with faith, and I have a lot of respect for people of faith. My uncle and aunt are Salvation Army people. For me, there was a lot of difficult stuff about faith. 
My dad was bipolar, and I was told that the devil came to visit my dad at night. Faith is really challenging, interesting, but also wonderful. 

When you're writing a song, other than if it's about Medway, what defines whether it's an Ashen Keys song or a South Shore Song?
No, because one of the songs that we're doing in the Ashen Keys is about St. Mary's Church in Higham. One of the songs, Hold My Bones, I did that in South Shore, and then it clearly worked as an Ashen Keys song. I think the songs that have gone to the South Shore album felt like a real cohesive collection.
But yeah, it's weird. I'll take a song to the Ashen Keys, and I'll say, “Do you want to do it?” or “What do you think?” because Vicky will write songs and each one is an absolute blinder. She definitely goes for quality. Whereas I'm often writing and sometimes it goes somewhere and sometimes it doesn't.

It's interesting to have been seen at your worst and then something good to come out of that

How did the Ashen Keys come to be? 
Well, that was really fun. I met Vicky in 2021 at Chatham Reach Festival, and she was compering, and I did a little spot and over lockdown I was so happy in my garden that I really thought I might not do music again. But then I did this gig, and it was really nice, and I met Vicky, and we just got on straight away.
Interestingly, and I don't know if you want to put this in or not, but I had a proper nervous breakdown in February 2022. I went to the studio (Ranscombe), and I was beside myself, couldn't function, crying, couldn't do the thing. They were all there, Nick, Stuart, Vicky and Jim [Riley], and now I'm in a band... It's interesting to have been seen at your worst and then something good to come out of that. 
Vicky and I were just going to have a bit of a jam, the two of us. Around that time, we started putting on the River Sessions, which came from the indie folk sessions that Ani Graves and I did pre-covid. We were hanging out, spending more time together.
The Flowing, the band with Dave Pickett, or that iteration that included Hannah and Vicky, came to a stop in the summer of ‘22, and then we picked up as a three. Vicky and I played Chatham Reach in September of '22, just as a duo, and we were trying to lure Hannah in.
We were called ELP, Ellerby, Lowrie, Price. Because we really wanted to be a collective, free, each person an equal part. Which is non-hierarchical, which is what we work and aspire to. It's lovely.
We ended up being called the Ashen Keys, because there's already ELP and that was ridiculous. But it was quite fun. 

What is an Ashen Key? 
An Ashen Key is an ash tree seed. They hang and look like a bunch of keys, and we came across the name. We decided at a Man of Kent gig we were going to give people homework and help us choose a name. We put post-its out on the table, and we had three options. Two of the options came from an encyclopaedia of Kentish dialects. Another one was Anthony Pig. An Anthony Pig is the beloved runt of a litter. We loved that term of endearment. The other one was the name of one of the Medway barges. We asked people to vote at the gig. It was overwhelmingly the Ashen Keys.