Siren of the Caribbean: Au/Ra

It’s 4pm on February 13 at the Arlington Hotel in north Dublin. While fans of Lewis Capaldi prepare to be serenaded by the Scottish singer-songwriter at The Academy that evening, Hot Press is mid-conversation with his truly intriguing support act, Au/Ra.
Streaming waves of green hair curtain the face of the Ibiza-born, Antigua-based electro-pop artist.

Aged just 15, she seems poised to take off in a manner reminiscent of Lorde. Born into a musical family, and with a rich cultural/linguistic background, Au/Ra’s debut songs ‘Concrete Jungle’ and ‘Kicks’ tackled everything from social ills to self-worth in soberingly straightforward fashion.

“I started thinking seriously about music when I was 10,” she explains. “I was always playing music, but I had terrible stage fright growing up, so that was something I needed to get over. I joined a choir in school and got more confident in what I was doing, and just decided that I’d love to do it for a living one day.

“I don’t think I ever expected this to happen so quickly though. I thought, ‘Oh yeah, when I’m older, I’ll just write songs down and work on them. Then when I’m 18 or 20, I’ll start releasing stuff.’ But when ‘Concrete Jungle’ took off, I made the decision to just keep releasing music.”
YouTube, Spotify and Facebook have a powerful way of sending talented artists into the viral stratosphere. After a whopping 17 million streams of her aforementioned debut single, Au/Ra made her first foray into the industry under the guidance of her father (a DJ in Ibiza throughout the ‘90s and ‘00s). She jetted back and forth to LA, where she worked with a team of producers and writers who helped develop her style over the course of two years.

“They’re all like my family and they helped me so much,” enthuses Au/Ra. “When it comes down to it, I just want to make music people can relate to when they’re having a hard time. Because I’ve definitely been there. Even with my latest single, ‘Panic Room’, I wrote it about someone running from a disaster, like literally running away from a crisis. Thinking to yourself, what’s going to happen? What if a monster suddenly jumps out and attacks you? And then ultimately finding out you’re just running from yourself, your own anxiety and fears.”

In many ways, Au/Ra’s earnest style is indicative of a younger generation who confront issues like mental health, loneliness and self-acceptance in a way older artists might balk at.
“It’s a slow, slow movement, but yeah, artists out there are talking about these things,” she reflects. “I think it’s really cool and should be supported. Of course, you’re going to have love songs and songs that unite people and all that, but I think it’s great that artists can write about these issues and it’s not seen as a strange thing. It’s easier to talk about them now.

Au/Ra’s new single ‘Panic Room’ is out now.