Folk artist Katie Spencer takes you to the Edge of The land with a show at Portsmouth Cathedral

And the Yorkshire-based folk artist has an affinity for coastal regions.

"I really love playing in coastal places, like Portsmouth, because I find that a lot of the music that I'm playing seems to resonate more with people in those sorts of locations,” she explains.

“A lot of the songs I've written are about the landscape that I know the best, which is the east coast and Yorkshire – I grew up near the River Humber and the North Sea. A lot of the songs are informed by that landscape so it feels special to share this kind of universal feeling that we all have with the connection to the landscape and especially if that involves water – it can be really powerful for people.

“A lot of the songs I write are celebrating people and the places I know the best.”

Katie will be playing at Portsmouth Cathedral, having been invited back to the city following a show at The Groundlings Theatre last year.

“Afterwards I met one of the women who is involved in putting on events at the cathedral. She'd come along to that gig as a punter and really enjoyed it and got in touch with me about putting on a gig at the cathedral next time I was down that way.

“I've also done a little bit of work for them – they did a soundscape garden experience last summer and I provided some of the music for that which was lovely, so it will be lovely to play live in there. That was through the same lady – she thought my music would be a nice fit for that environment.”

Edge of The Land was written during the pandemic, as Katie recalls: "I was grateful to have the time to put aside to write them – that was one of the main takeaways for me, even though I know it was a terrible time for a lot of people, myself at times included. But generally speaking it was a wonderful chance to get back and focus more on the creation side of things.

"I'd just moved to a completely new landscape as well – I'd moved to West Yorkshire, which is very different to the east, which is very flat. A lot of the songs were inspired by that shift as well, and for that reason I feel like they've got more longevity behind them than just being about that moment in time.

“It still feels good to play them, but when I think about the actual writing process, having a very specific mindset and one which we haven't had since because of the specific nature of that situation.

“A lot of the songs still feel relevant to me because I was focusing a lot on landscapes and things – when we could I was going out on walks, which gave me the chance to take stock of where I was.”

While Katie only picked up a guitar at 16, she was given a good grounding in music by her parents.

"Both my parents are huge appreciators of music and I grew up in that environment and I was taken to festivals as a small child – a lot of those were folk festivals which were quite accessible for children.

"Their music tastes spanned a lot of genres which was nice, but they didn't play any instruments. My dad did have a guitar in the house that he occasionally played a handful of chords on, but it was mostly just an ornament.

“I would strum the strings as I walked past and then one day I thought, ‘I'll have a go at this...’ And from there I fell in love with it. I think the exposure to the live music especially was important to me, but I didn't pick up the guitar until I was 16.

“To start with I was playing a lot of straightforward rock riffs – it was food for my ears, it was familiar. At 16 I had already started following my own path musically, informed by what my parents listened to but also branching out and listening to a lot of different things. I found myself listening more and more to the songwriters of the late ’60s and early ’70s – people like Joni Mitchell and John Martyn and a lot of the folk-revival singer-songwriters. I challenged myself to learn to play one of the classic songs from that scene called Blues Run The Game (the much covered Jackson C Frank song) and I couldn't get it for such a long time. Then I woke up one day and I could play it and it was a real penny-drop moment for me. I suddenly found myself able to play the music that I wanted to hear and that was exciting.

“From there I began to write more and more of my own songs inspired by that style.”

Katie plays Portsmouth Cathedral on Thursday, September 21. Go to portsmouthcathedral.org.uk.