The year has ended pretty well for Sydney artist Aela Kae aka Mikaela Grob. Having made it to the finals of the triple j remix competition for Lorde’s Homemade Dynamite and making huge progress on her own music, it’s safe to say that the summer is looking good.
Happy caught up with the busy Mikaela to chat Lorde, the upcoming summer festivals and her new releases for 2018.
2016 saw Aela Kae release her first EP Mind Your Head, a beautiful collection of tracks which perfectly capture her moody, soulful electronic soundscapes.
Jumping up to the plate for the triple j remix comp is no small feat, so we were eager to hear what made Mikaela take on the opportunity and why Homemade Dynamite stood out for her. She responded eagerly.
“I am a huge Lorde and Jack Antonoff fan so there was no way I wasn’t going to give it a shot. The experience was kind of surreal, I still haven’t fully processed the reality of Lorde listening to something I produced in my bedroom, especially a remix of something she wrote.”
But is the Aela Kae remix a reflection of what we can expect in her other work? It’s a fine balance working on someone else’s music and keeping it in line with your own sound, so how did Mikaela navigate the project?
“The mix is definitely a taste of my sound at the current moment, it often changes depending on the music I’m listening to at the time. I have this way of completely immersing myself in a particular genre and then everything I produce seems to sound like that. However I do tend to think of remixes as a side project to what I’m writing/producing myself.”
Even before triple j gave her the nod, Aela Kae was absolutely killing it, but as it would seem, this was an unexpected outcome.
“It was received a lot better than I expected, especially for a release I did entirely myself. One of the songs on the EP, Intuition has just clocked over 180k plays on Spotify which is pretty cool!”
If you were around Sydney’s live music scene a few years back you would likely have seen Mikaela performing alongside a bunch of artists including local hero Dom Price aka Dead Language. A multi instrumentalist, Mikaela absolutely shreds trumpet and her experience in orchestras and bands has lead to a well rounded sound, one which definitely comes into play when you hear her latest releases.
As Mikaela commented; “When I first started producing music I was really into those weird beats you find on Soundcloud in the early hours of the morning and I guess learning music theory and playing in orchestras really helped in understanding how to balance, compose and eventually produce a good song.”
If you liked what you’ve heard so far then get down to the Happy Mag Issue 6 launch party on December 9th at The Lady Hampshire, where Aela Kae will be opening the night. She has tipped a simple set, and in her words we can expect “Myself, a guitar and some songs about growing up”.
If you weren’t already planning on it, this is the perfect opportunity to catch Aela Kae before she absolutely explodes.
