Kyla La Grange
(electro pop from the UK)
La Grange first started writing songs in her bedroom at fifteen before venturing out into the open mic circuit in her hometown of Watford. After graduating with a degree in philosophy from Cambridge University, she
continued to play acoustic gigs around Cambridge, London and Watford while recording demos in studio downtime with producers she met on the live circuit. Between part-time jobs, she messaged record execs, managers and promoters on Myspace and found a home for her pop-folk/indie-rock playing London’s Communion and Chess Club nights, going on to release four singles through Chess Club, including fan favourite Vampire Smile.
Her debut album, ‘Ashes’ was released through Sony, and was described as ‘a powerhouse of production, tweaked and polished in the studio to produce a Spectre-like wall of sound.’ Sonically, her sophomore record was a dramatic departure from her first, as showcased by lead single ‘Cut Your Teeth’, which premiered to widespread acclaim. A crystalline dream of minimal synths and percussive field-recordings over an unctuous wobbling bassline, the track made waves across the blogosphere and caught the attention of emerging DJ Kygo, who ripped the track from Soundcloud and remixed it.
La Grange says, ‘I opened my laptop one morning and all over Twitter there were people talking about this remix. I love that he just went off and did it and we didn’t know he was going to, it’s so nice that it happened like that. I feel like in the music industry these days things don’t often happen in that kind of spontaneous, unplanned way anymore.’
The Kygo remix was a huge success, and was released as a single by Kyla and Kygo together. It has since amassed over a hundred and forty million streams on Spotify alone.
La Grange was asked to tour as a vocalist with legendary British electronica group Faithless for their 2.0 comeback tour, which saw a run of arena shows and European festival circuits. She began to release standalone singles in between Faithless shows, and returned to her own live shows with a renewed and impressive stage confidence borne from her time spent touring.
Of While Your Heart’s Still Beating, La Grange says, “I wanted to write as honestly as possible, to create something that took to me to the edge of where I was comfortable, because those are the part of our minds that we often try to avoid, but they’re also the parts that really make us who we are.”
