20 September 2024 - 0 Comments

Releasing his next single on Albert’s favourites, London based Arjuna Oakes has had some great milestones! He had the chance to perform in Paris for the New Zealand Olympic team, while top of his list for shows recently, was Performing at The Jazz Cafe in London, supporting Nathan Haines album launch. If you are in London, he is playing at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney on the 25th of September.

There's a sense of longing captured in the floating peacefulness of Catch Me. Drawing as ever from jazz, in Arjuna’s lush sonic universe, rich with strings and soaring flute we can hear inspiration from artists like Moses Sumney and Kadhja Bonet.

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“I can remember the day I started writing Catch Me in the middle of winter 2019. I had not long moved to Wellington from Auckland (in New Zealand). I was just improvising at the piano waiting for a piano student to arrive and suddenly this song starts to present itself. I had the melody ringing through my head the whole time teaching the lesson. As soon as we finished I grabbed a notebook. I walked around the botanic gardens just down the road, and wrote all of the lyrics. I rushed home and recorded a demo with just keyboard and vocals. All of the backing vocals and vocal effects you hear in the song were from that original demo.”

“I didn’t revisit the demo until I recorded a version with drums and bass. Then I mixed the two versions together, and decided that it needed a big epic string arrangement to give it an otherworldly feeling. I had only just started writing for strings, but revelled in the challenge. After nearly driving myself insane arranging and notating string parts for the album, I assembled a quartet of my friends to perform them. I felt there was still something missing, so I asked the legendary Nathan Haines to improvise on flute, which we then cut up and used to fill the space. Serebii added some beautiful production touches, and we finally had the lush little epic that I dreamed of from the start.”

Arjuna Oakes is an accomplished singer/songwriter, pianist, composer and producer from New Zealand, currently based in London. Following the release of his debut EP The Watcher in 2019, Arjuna has released another six projects all to widespread acclaim. Two EP's First Nights and Final Days are a collaboration with longtime friend and co-producer Serebii, released by LA-based record label Innovative Leisure (BadBadNotGood, Allah-Las). First Nights debuted at #5 on KCRW's top 30 Albums chart and has had extensive play on BBC6 and BBC1xtra.

Arjuna’s Singles on Albert’s Favourites are - Motel and The Love That I Feel.

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