Renowned singer-songwriters Julia Othmer and Carol Hodge to kick off their Selenite Songs Tour in Southsea

The piano-playing singer-songwriters soon became firm friends and co-conspirators.

Hodge has been a long-term collaborator with Steve Ignorant of cult punk heroes Crass, and also plays keys for rock maverick Ginger Wildheart. Othmer has shared stages with the likes of Emmylou Harris, Sarah McLachlan, and Regina Spektor.

But with the Othmer based in Kansas City, US, and Hodge in Yorkshire, they have had to get creative in every sense, and so the Selenite Songs project was born.

On the first new moon of each month, they’d each spend two hours (as they saw fit) on writing a new song based on the same prompt which was either chosen by them or from engagement with their fans online.

Julia explains: “Since December, Carol and I have been having this songwriting pen-pal relationship. We get together regularly in order to support each other's creativity and push each other forward – to challenge each other.

“A big part of this project was not only how could we support each other's creativity and work as an artist, but also what kind of thrills and scares us? How can we both be growing as artists? And a part of that is allowing work that is still very raw and fresh to be presented in front of a live audience.

“There's something really freeing sometimes about having well-placed limitations. Part of the songwriting process with the Selenite Songs project, having two hours sort of freed us up to do it.

“Carol and I both care so deeply about our songwriting and what we offer to our audiences, if we had more time we'd probably then be entirely consumed by the songwriting project, instead of having some kind of balance with all of the things that we already had planned.

“When we decided to do this we already had full schedules in the winter and the spring, we were like, how can we make this work? The time limit was sort of freeing.

"It's kind of enough time to sit and stew with it, and we have both engaged with that two hours differently. Both of us have at one point just sat down and been like: ‘right it's two o'clock, at four o'clock it's over and that's what it is’. And I know we've both also been like, ‘okay I'm giving it 15 minutes today, I'm going to give 15 minutes tomorrow’, and so on.

"We just trust each other to hold that space, because this whole project is is really again about creativity about connection, about exploring our creative process, about supporting each other, about sharing our vulnerabilities, sharing our thoughts."

Julia gives an example of one of these prompts and how they each engaged with it.

“The tour is called the Selenite Songs tour, selenite is a crystal that helps cleanse other crystals, and so we're like, ‘okay, the first song is going to be about a precious gem or stone.’

"Carol wrote The Emerald Song and I wrote a song called Diamonds. It's interesting to see where our intuitions and our creative impulses are sometimes in alignment and sometimes they diverge wildly! We both chose precious gems, and in that particular song I like to joke that Carol used all the chords for her composition, and for my song I used one! We couldn't have been more opposite, really, in our songwriting approach and yet we were focused on a similar subject.”

When it comes to the live show, the pair favour keeping that raw creative instinct alive.

“During our performance we are on stage together, so there's two pianos, two women sharing their songs, sharing their stories, it's a very intimate, acoustic engagement.

“We start off with performing songs from our repertoire, so you have a basis of knowing that we know what we're doing,” she gives a huge laugh, “we want to give you the impression that we're professionals.

“We do invite chance as a part of the performance so we have somebody toss a coin every night to see who goes first, and then we take turns.

"Then the second phase of the evening is where we share several songs from the songwriting process. These are not polished necessarily. I've often needed my lyrics in front of me because they're still that fresh and we want to just share that vulnerability with audiences and share our process."

“Especially in this day and age where everything is so hyper-polished there's something that is deeply connective about being able to share something in progress, being able to share something that isn't so perfectly formed in our opinions, or so rehearsed that it's almost rote, which can happen in the life of a performer, though hopefully never with Carol and I.”

But it doesn’t end there – the pair invite the audience each night into their creative process.

“After we've shared our newer songs we do a live co-creation with the audience. We ask the audience to share several aspects of their lives before the show and they have the chance to sort of anonymously put prompts into a box before the show. Then just before our live co-creation Carol and I dive into these boxes and we get prompts that are coming from our audience, and in that moment we create a song that is reflective of the energies of the people in that room.

“It's kind of an intense experience – usually it works! Some nights are more interesting than others, shall we say, but it's very honest, it's very raw, it's very in the moment, it's very vulnerable.

“There's something that's definitely sort of terrifying but deeply exciting about that. It's another way that we can be sharing vulnerability and sharing being in the moment.”

Does Julia think they’ll ever go into a studio to record these songs?

"I wouldn't discount that being on the books at some point,” she says. “As soon as we start going into a more of a 'recording' recording we might start treating the songs differently, so there's something I love about where we are at the moment with this sort of lo-fi but very emotionally invested recording. With the concert, it feels apropos with the way that we've been presenting this work.”

The Selenite Songs Tour is at Southsea Sound on Albert Road, Southsea, on Friday, November 1, with support from Portsmouth-based folk-rock band Halliwell.

Tickets £8.50. Go to skiddle.com/whats-on/Portsmouth/Southsea-Sound.