Musician launches new EP
Michaela Pointon has the kind of youthful enthusiasm anyone would be jealous of. Fresh-faced and full of excitement about the world, the 18 year old’s attitude could light up any room.
While the Tauhara College head girl is naturally relaxed in the leadup to the school holidays, her excitement is warranted for other reasons. After many years of work honing her musical skills, the Taupo¯ singer/songwriter has just released her first EP — Human Nature — a six-song offering of organic pop originals.
Her songs are inspired by life experiences and while she admits some lyrics are brutally honest and raw, she enjoys contrasting melodies against the emotion of her songs.
“Song writing is such an exaggeration of emotions,” she said. “I like creating light pop melodies that have heavy lyrics, so you can still easily listen to a song and hopefully it is memorable.”
She explains Human Nature as a slight shift away from what Taupo¯ audiences have experienced of her music in the past.
“I love catchy hooks and enjoy listening to popular music, especially songs that people can sing along with,” she said. “So, while I’m usually playing strippedback songs with just my guitar, this EP is very layered and beautifully produced, full of songs that are probably a bit more edgy than what I’ve done before.”
The idea of recording an EP has been one Michaela has been in discussion about for the last three years, but all six songs have been written in the past 12 months. Working with local Taupo¯ musician David Love, who produced the EP and performs on the tracks, Michaela said finally making an album was all about timing.
“We really wanted to make sure we had the best material and it was going to be as good as possible,” she said. “It’s been an amazing collaboration with David who has set high expectations all the way through. He helped me to not settle for anything less than perfect when we were recording the EP, so I’m really proud of what we’ve produced.”
Music will continue to be a big part of Michaela’s life when she moves to Auckland next year, starting degrees in music, politics and international relations.
“While I’m totally looking forward to getting into studying next year, I’m so excited about music, it’s just so important and so exciting for me right now, and I can’t wait to keep writing and sharing my music with others.”
Human Nature was officially released last Friday in front of a crowd of 170 people and is available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming services. In the first 48 hours after release it had almost 1000 streams on Spotify alone.