Hello everyone, it’s your host Tehillah from DULAXI, and today I’m delighted to be joined by Donna James, the creative force behind VelumVelvet, an emerging pop project from Brigg, England. VelumVelvet’s latest single, “Polarised by Love”, was released on July 17, 2026, bringing a nostalgic 1980s-inspired pop atmosphere to a story about attraction, possibility, and the extraordinary emotional weight that can exist inside one fleeting encounter.
Before we begin our conversation with Donna James, here’s what you need to know about today’s featured project.
About VelumVelvet
VelumVelvet is the artistic world created by Donna James, a nurse and lifelong poet from Brigg, England, whose creative life stretches back decades before she ever began releasing music publicly. A daydreamer from an early age who explored drawing and drama during her school years, James spent much of her life writing privately. Her poetry and observations accumulated quietly over time, eventually developing into a musical project that would give those long-held words a new voice.
VelumVelvet officially began releasing music in January 2026, marking a significant transition from private creativity to public expression. The project is rooted in storytelling, emotion, observation, and the strange ways that fragments of life can suddenly become songs. James describes her writing process as “word soups”, a spontaneous gathering of words, thoughts, memories, images, and ideas that can arrive almost anywhere. A song can appear while she is sitting in bed or travelling on a train, sometimes beginning with an object, a spark, a phrase, or an unexpected thought. From those fragments, complete stories can emerge.
Her background has also given her a particularly observant relationship with human emotion. James has worked as a nurse for decades, including 20 years in intensive care, and describes herself as a witness to life in both its difficult and extraordinary moments. That experience has informed the emotional depth of her writing, allowing her to approach her songs from what she describes as a deep place of heart and soul.
Musically, VelumVelvet draws inspiration from artists across several generations and styles. David Bowie’s freedom of creative expression, Annie Lennox’s emotional storytelling, Billie Eilish’s ability to communicate feeling, as well as the influence of Daughter and Ed Sheeran, have all contributed to the artistic landscape surrounding the project. Yet VelumVelvet is not simply an exercise in musical influence. It is an attempt to create a world where James can bring together poetry, music, visual creativity, memory, imagination, and emotion on her own terms.
“Polarised by Love” opens the Room of Romance. The single began with a challenge James set for herself: to write an unapologetically pop song built around a story that could feel like a scene from a film. The resulting narrative begins on platform two, where a stranger waiting for a train becomes the centre of a rapidly expanding world of glances, signals, possibilities, and imagined futures. Rather than beginning with an established relationship, the song focuses on the thrilling uncertainty that exists before anything has actually happened, when a single look can be enough to create an entire story inside someone’s imagination.
There is also an important personal story behind the single’s release. “Polarised by Love” nearly remained on the shelf until James’s husband heard it and encouraged her to release it. His reaction became another reminder that years of being quiet can leave even a writer questioning whether their work deserves to be heard. For James, having someone close to her recognise something in the song helped push it beyond the private world where so many of her ideas had previously existed.
“Polarised by Love” therefore represents more than a new single. It is an early doorway into an artistic world that James has waited much of her life to share.
Having this brief introduction to today’s featured project, I’m sure both new listeners and longtime fans are excited to hear directly from Donna. So, without further ado, let’s begin today’s interview.
INTERVIEW SESSION
Tehillah:
You are a nurse, a lifelong poet, and someone who spent decades creating quietly before beginning to release music publicly in January 2026. When you look back at the years before VelumVelvet became a musical project, what was happening inside you creatively, and what finally made you feel ready to allow those private words and ideas to become songs that other people could hear?
VelumVelvet:
Well, Tehilah, where do I begin? My life took a path and that’s a story of hurt, 30 years of hush; that’s the way I look at it. I have written all my life m, but it was mostly in private. I also have poems on a website. I was a daydreamer, a teenager who drew and went to drama classes as part of school. My teacher told me I’d write a book one day. So I believe VelumVelvet was destined to be born, January was the moment I had healed another, was brave another, and simply seen another to just let her become.
Tehillah:
There is an interesting contrast between your work as a nurse and the deeply emotional, imaginative world you have created through VelumVelvet. How have the people you have encountered, the stories you have witnessed, and your experiences of caring for others shaped the way you understand human emotion and translate it into your writing?
VelumVelvet:
I have so many things: from human sadness to amazing strength as a nurse. 20 years on ITU. Next year will be my 40th year. I’m a great observer and a witness to life, good or bad. So I write from a deep place, a heart and soul.
Tehillah:
You describe your writing process as beginning with “word soups,” where fragments of thoughts, memories, and feelings gradually come together until they form something meaningful. Can you take us into that process and explain what usually happens between the first scattered words and the moment you realise that those fragments are becoming a song?
VelumVelvet:
Ok, now this is an amazing thing. My word soups. I can have a full song given to me. Yellow Brick Roads was a whole song, and so was Cold as Stone. I can see an object a spark is lit. I wrote a love song after watching a Kylie documentary. It’s not released yet. Love has no Edges. Gaslighting formed from a language translator in a room. Words jumbled in my mind just arrive, and I have a vault on my phone full of song lyrics. I could be on a train, sat in bed it just happens. I even make words up.
Tehillah:
Your influences include artists as different as David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Billie Eilish, Daughter, and Ed Sheeran. Looking across those influences, what qualities have stayed with you most strongly, and how have they shaped the way you approach storytelling, emotion, songwriting, and your own artistic identity as VelumVelvet?
VelumVelvet:
Well, I love how David Bowie talks about just being free to create. I listen to his songs and just love his music Billie Eilish and Annie Lennox it’s just emotion storytelling and I love songs that give you that.
Tehillah:
You have created the House of Emotional Rooms as the conceptual world surrounding VelumVelvet, with each release opening the door to a different emotional experience. Where did the idea of representing emotions as rooms come from, and what does this house mean to you beyond being a creative concept?
VelumVelvet:
The rooms concept was born from my creative brain. The Velvet cloak, the nurse that cares. I want you to step inside my house and feel safe to cry, laugh, sing and feel. Yes my cloak is your protector.
Tehillah:
You have also placed authenticity above polish in your approach to music, choosing to record your vocals at home because that is where the emotion feels most genuine. What does an emotionally honest performance sound and feel like to you, and how do you recognise that moment when you know you have captured something real?
VelumVelvet:
I record at home because I have nowhere else to record, and I have a guy on Airgigs who has been helping with production. He gave me Polarised by Loves instrumental. I’m new to singing and learning as fast as I can. So yes, everything’s done at home. I don’t have a manager or anyone else, and I only ever wanted to share my songwriting with others. I love being creative and do all my own visuals too.
Tehillah:
“Polarised by Love” begins in such a specific cinematic setting: platform two, a stranger waiting for a train, and one chance sighting that suddenly becomes a world of snapshots, signals, possibilities, and what-ifs. What first brought that particular scene to your imagination, and what made you want to turn such a fleeting encounter into a complete romantic story?
VelumVelvet:
Polarised by Love began with me wanting to write a pop track. I started by playing with song structure. Two-line song, then I added the hook Polarised by Love. I couldn’t leave it like this, and my songs are scenes; I love writing Bridges. I got carried away, and a full song arrived. It was planned; that’s what my words soups gave me. I nearly didn’t release it until my husband heard it and said get it released.
Tehillah:
Writing a deliberately unashamed pop song with a story that feels almost like a scene from a movie was a challenge you set for yourself, while the subtle 1980s influence gives the track another layer of nostalgia. What drew you toward that combination, and how did you shape the song so that the pop energy and cinematic storytelling could exist together naturally?
VelumVelvet:
I guess my own story of love, not on a platform mind. But I saw his eyes and that was enough. So Polarised by Love it certainly was. I’m all for a romantic moment and a spark of beginnings.
Tehillah:
The title “Polarised by Love” suggests that the experience of love has almost divided or altered the way someone sees the world. What does the title represent to you emotionally, and how does it connect with the person standing on that platform and imagining everything that could happen from one brief encounter?
VelumVelvet:
Well, we all dream; we all hope for that moment and when it happens is just incredible and for Polarised by Love, it happened on platform 2.
Tehillah:
Romance is often explored through established relationships, but “Polarised by Love” focuses on something much earlier and more uncertain, that moment when attraction begins before two people even know each other. What fascinated you about that particular emotional space, where an entire story can exist inside someone’s imagination before anything has actually happened?
VelumVelvet:
This is going to sound a little unconventional, but I love challenges, and that’s why Polarised by Love happened. I just write from the words I am given.
Tehillah:
Your background as a poet naturally brings a strong emphasis on words and imagery, yet this song was also an exercise in writing within a pop framework. How did your poetic instincts influence the lyrics and storytelling in “Polarised by Love,” and were there moments when you had to step away from your usual way of writing to make the song work as pop?
VelumVelvet:
I always like to write in scenes. Where we all have been or, what we dream of happening. It’s just how I write. No training here. Yes, and that’s why I house of emotional rooms, each a scene.
Tehillah:
The song turns a brief sighting into a collection of imagined possibilities, which leaves considerable room for the listener to project their own experiences onto the story. Was there a particular personal memory or emotional experience behind those details, or did you deliberately create the entire scene as a fictional story that could belong to anyone?
VelumVelvet:
After years of being hushed, you can doubt yourself; that’s quite a human thing. I was lucky I escaped and met someone incredible who sees me. If he listens and he is my best critic, release it. I just go with his judgement.
Tehillah:
There is a beautiful irony in the fact that “Polarised by Love” nearly remained unheard because the song had been sitting on a shelf until a friend listened to it and told you, “You need to release it.” What did that reaction reveal to you about the way you had been viewing your own work, and did that moment change how you decide which songs deserve to be brought into the world?
VelumVelvet:
Well, I discuss it with my producer, and we don’t always get it right the first time. I think the first take was more country than pop. Then we hit what we both thought was right. He’s been great at supporting me. It was always meant to feel like an 80s vibe pop song. I like a story to a song. That’s classic 80s
Tehillah:
The finished track has been described as hypnotic, warm, and nostalgic, with human-made instrumentation supporting that atmosphere. When you were developing the sound, which musical or production choices were most important in creating that warmth, and how did you prevent the 1980s influence from becoming more important than the emotional story at the centre of the song?
VelumVelvet:
Well, I had no clue. We were starting a house project and I started writing a song. Then I thought, can I convert some of my poems to songs Devotion is where all this began; then the word soups started and the journey began.
Tehillah:
You only began releasing music publicly in January 2026, yet you have already moved beyond simply releasing individual songs and started constructing an entire emotional universe around your work. What have these first months as a recording artist taught you about yourself that you could not have learned during all those years of writing privately?
VelumVelvet:
I have been so scared to share my voice, years of being told to be quiet, and I had no clue what was going to happen. I started with three full AI tracks. I could see I needed to sing and from that moment I’ve been singing and I’m not perfect, but I’m learning fast. I now have a producer and I’m singing. I never knew how people would react to writing or my voice.
Tehillah:
The House of Emotional Rooms gives listeners an opportunity to recognise pieces of their own lives inside your stories, and “Polarised by Love” particularly captures the universal experience of wondering what might have happened after a brief encounter with someone. What do you hope a listener feels or discovers about their own story when they step into the Room of Romance through this song?
VelumVelvet:
I’m just an ordinary girl who cares and wants people to get lost in their own space. So Polarised by Love is a place where all our hearts live.
Tehillah:
“Polarised by Love” is the first doorway into the Room of Romance, but it is also part of a much larger world that you are building through VelumVelvet. As you continue opening new emotional rooms and exploring different sides of the human experience, what kind of artistic world do you ultimately want VelumVelvet to become, and what would you hope people remember about the journey when they look back on it years from now?
VelumVelvet:
For me, this is a beginning; Woman’s Burden is mid-production. Cold as Stone is getting a human instrumental. I have
so much more to give. I’ve waited most of my life for this time to give the world my songs, VelumVelvet and Donna James.
“VelumVelvet turns the smallest moments into doors, and with ‘Polarised by Love’, Donna James invites us into a room where one glance can become an entire universe of possibility.”
~ Tehillah (DULAXI Team)
EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVE
“Polarised by Love” feels like an early glimpse into an artist discovering what happens when a lifetime of private writing finally meets a public voice. Its strength lies in the meeting of Donna James’s scene-based songwriting with a deliberately nostalgic pop setting, creating a space where romance can feel both imagined and immediate. More importantly, the song sits naturally within the wider House of Emotional Rooms concept, where the music becomes an invitation rather than simply a performance. There is a clear sense that VelumVelvet is still unfolding, which makes this beginning particularly intriguing.
~ Tehillah (DULAXI Team)
CLOSING
Thank you, Donna, for taking the time to share your story, your creative process, and the experiences that have shaped both you and VelumVelvet. Our conversation offered a meaningful look behind “Polarised by Love”, but also behind the much larger emotional world you are beginning to build through the House of Emotional Rooms.
For listeners discovering VelumVelvet for the first time, “Polarised by Love” offers an opportunity to step into the Room of Romance and experience a story built around one of life’s most familiar yet mysterious moments: the spark that can begin with a single glance and all the possibilities that follow it. As Donna continues developing “Woman’s Burden”, “Cold as Stone”, and the other rooms still waiting to be opened, there is clearly much more of this journey still to come.
Thank you to everyone spending time with DULAXI and taking the time to discover the artists, stories, and ideas behind the music. We hope you will continue following VelumVelvet as Donna James brings more of her long-held words into the world.
Until our next DULAXI interview, this is Tehillah. Keep listening, keep discovering, and keep making room for new stories.