Having already captivated so many with her brilliant single 'Darling' last year, Australian artist Malina Claire is back to do it all again on her latest effort 'Window'.
Channeling a rich and vibrant aesthetic throughout, 'Window' sees her return with one of her most spellbinding releases to date. Filled with a warming atmosphere, ethereal tones, and her own beautiful vocals layered amongst it, this new stunner is perfectly crafted to calm even the most stressed individual.
So with the new track out and about, we sat her down to find out more about her origins and what has inspired her most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
I’ve always had a real love for the violin. It was the first instrument I ever learnt to play at school (although I only played for one year before transferring) but I’ve been drawn to it ever since. I’m a sucker for emotional music and there’s something about popping some strings into a song that just makes it that much more impactful.
What has been the most prominent inspiration behind your music so far?
For me, I can’t actually write music unless I’m upset about something or thinking about something. A lot of my music comes from heartache- how I’ve mistreated someone, how someone else has mistreated me- and just a way to process and analyse how I feel and how I process the world around me. So most of my music is always inspired by personal anecdotes. In terms of production, as mentioned earlier, I love a lot of natural orchestral instrumentation and production and am drawn to natural and acoustic sounds. Artists like Keaton Henson or Fiona Apple are huge inspirations for me in that sense in how they incorporate these big, dramatic and cinematic arrangements into their music to create some of the most heartfelt music I have ever heard.
What kind of music did you love as a teenager?
My musical tastes varied a lot as a teenager. I started to gain my own sense of music outside of Pop, but even that was just out of the reach of the mainstream, like Gabrielle Aplin and then discovered artists like Keaton Henson, Flatsound, City and Colour and Benjamin Francis Leftwich which got me more into acoustic folk-style music which shaped a lot of my writing habits today. You can bet I definitely still had my boyband phase though, absolutely in love with The Wanted thinking I was cool and alternative while everybody else followed One Direction. You can bet I had a Justin Bieber phase too, as much as I tried not to. I also discovered powerful female voices like Amy Winehouse, BANKS and Fiona Apple who all shined a unique lens on to a lot of somewhat female-specific pain.
What do you find is the best environment to find inspiration for your music?
I don’t necessarily get inspiration from environments, but rather from feelings themselves. A lot of the time I just need to be sad enough about something that my feelings need to go somewhere. I will get a lot of general inspiration on public transport where I’m most likely to drop a lyric idea down in my phone notes that could come from how I feel or what I’m listening to. Otherwise, often in private in my bedroom or living room when I’m just feeling low and have found space to be comfortable enough in my feelings. When I was studying at uni, there was a space I really loved- one of the studio rooms was quite quaint and had a small upright piano which is where I wrote Window. I used to come home from work quite late at night and my boyfriend would be completing work in the adjacent studio and I’d play around on the piano (an instrument I don’t really know how to play) and see what I could come up with. It was a very cathartic and healing experience for me to process my thoughts and emotions.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
I know I’ve already mentioned her enough but Fiona Apple’s ‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard! It still continues to blow me away on every listen! Phoebe Bridgers wrote an absolutely amazing album as well that I keep coming back to with ‘Punisher’, particularly the last track I Know the End. Gus Dapperton’s album ‘Orca’ as well I think definitely hasn’t gotten the recognition it deserves, particularly the track Medicine which I think is such a beautifully constructed slow-burner that is produced so beautifully and emotively. I’ve visited a lot of FKA Twigs (I suggest anyone who reads this watches her performance for Valentino on YouTube. It breaks my heart every time!), Clairo and Girl in Red too!
How many of your songs have you written about people you wish you’d rather forget?
My literal entire first EP! Behind Closed Doors and Yesterday’s Coffee were both written about the same ex-partner who emotionally and sexually abused me as well as some forms of physical abuse. Until Then was written about the aftermath of that abuse and my unhealthy coping mechanisms where I went on late night walks a lot, stayed up by myself to process things and drank a lot. Scintilla was about moving on and how my first partner since I felt only wanted me as an accessory, not so much as a partner, and how quickly he grew distant. Window is an extension of that song and that following, homing in on the “You always turn from me when you sleep. I’ll let you take up as much space as you need. I just wish you’d look at me” line and playing with that same feeling and imagery. The only song that isn’t about someone I’d rather forget would be Darling which was written with and about my current partner.
What has been the funniest moment in your career so far?
Most of my funniest moments have all come from studio sessions. The first was in one of my unreleased songs that was in C, we got our keys player to play the entire song in C# so everything sounded TERRIBLE once it got sent to the guy who was mixing it. Another funny session was during a fairly chaotic track Control which was written with one of my best friends and the violinist in all my music Gabrielle Kerr. The song is super spooky and again written to explore times in my life where I was mistreated, this time looking more at the nuances of toxic masculinity and how it affected me growing up. To show the anger of the song, we worked with a producer who made us do a lot of left-field things, like stomping and kicking over chairs and dissonant violin playing. One thing we did as well was yell and whisper the lyrics underneath the main line for texture. Gabby had to do it as every time I tried to yell, my Australian accent came out so THICK and bogan. Studio sessions are definitely something I miss about my time studying music at university, particularly all my late night sessions!
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
Right now, I think I would love to open for Phoebe Bridgers. Although my writing and style isn’t as sophisticated as hers, I was so jealous last time I saw her play in Brisbane and the support she had there and have fantasised about it ever since. I think if my career picked up even just a little bit more traction, maybe that could be possible!
If you weren’t a musician, what other path do you think you might have taken?
I’m very interested in the human condition and, due to my past with domestic violence and my experience with friendships with people with varying personality disorders and mental health, I think I would have studied psychology. I think the human brain is both fascinating and awful at the same time and everyone is struggling with something. I think topically it is very interesting but, as someone with the traits of an empath matched with my past, I hope that would be the kind of person that could help somebody make changes in their own life and behaviour.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
For me, I can’t pinpoint any specific pieces of advice, but can definitely identify a very important lesson and that is to stop looking at the musicians around you as competition, and start viewing them as a community. I think the only way to make it as an artist is to support the artists around you or how the hell do you expect anybody to support you? Once you teach yourself to stop worrying about people who are ahead of you and start to learn from them, befriend them and hype them up, you’ll learn a lot more than you will trying to navigate it on your own and trying to make yourself better when everybody is just different. In one of my uni lectures I also learnt that it can take around 5-10 years before your career can start to kick off, which I think helped ground me as well to stop being so competitive and self-conscious about how my music is travelling compared to those in my community.
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Malina Claire's new single 'Window' is available to stream and download now. Watch the video for it in the player below.