From Toronto comes artist Dani Kristina’s debut EP Aura, which was released this past Friday on all streaming platforms. The EP was created alongside Grammy-nominated Trevor James Anderson, and features five tracks that fuse various genres in order to create a unique, cinematic sound.
“This release really encompasses the various influences at play when I’m writing, or even just existing. I’ve never been able to box myself into just one category, and I think that by listening to “Aura” that becomes really evident. This project has kind of been a journey of me finding out who I am as an artist, and it explores a lot of inner conflicts that I’ve experienced throughout my writing and recording process. I really hope that this release reaches some people who have felt the same things as me, and I hope they fall in love with some of the complex emotions I explore throughout.”
said Dani
Just like Taylor Swift, Lennon Stella, Halsey and countless other inspirations, singer-songwriter Dani Kristina knows how to write bangers. Through the process of writing over 600 songs as a teenager and training as a classical pianist and vocalist, she has found her niche.
Dani can be found on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and keep on reading for my interview with the Canadian singer.
Could you begin by telling us a bit about yourself and your background?
I’ve been playing and creating music since I was five years old, when I first started taking piano lessons. I studied and practiced classical piano for years, but I used to spend all my free time writing songs and seeking out audiences to share them with. Both in my formal music training and in my everyday life, I was never strictly bound to one genre of music. I really enjoyed country, rock, metal, blues and gospel growing up, and I think there’s a lot of evidence in that in both my performances and creation. I’ve written over 600 original songs, and I really don’t like limiting myself to one specific genre because of all the different influences that make up my artistic expression.
What does Aura mean to you?
Aura is a project I’ve been working on for about a year now, and it’s my introduction as an artist to my audience. It’s kind of this encapsulation of my identity in a way, showing the different influences that are at play in my work, as well as my journey to a sort of acceptance with negative experiences and relationships that I’ve lived through. Much of the instrumentation and metaphors that are used within the tracks are very carefully chosen and deliberate.
For example, I wrote the song “Laundry Day” in a specific style that I knew the people I wrote it for would have stuck in their head. A sort of irony that I find really entertaining, especially as I’ve been taken to a dark place by people who don’t really understand the gravity of their words. It’s one of those songs that I find can lift me up when I sing it, and that remind me of why I’m doing what I’m doing. In the context of the whole EP, it’s one that I needed to put on there, to sort of lighten the mood on a lot of the dark thematic content of the rest of the album.
What do you hope people take away while listening to Aura?
I really hope that people feel like they’ve gotten to know me better as both an artist and a person after listening to Aura. I sort of framed it as this journey of a lost relationship, with the last two tracks kind of being this light at the end of the tunnel. With the extreme high that comes with “Laundry Day”, “You Don’t Get to Choose” provides this necessary grounding to the narrative.
In a way, Aura is an introduction to what is to come with my future releases, and it sets up this framework for the kind of music I’ll be creating. There’s hints of extreme vulnerability in my lyrics, and this will only become more obvious with the more music I’ll release in the coming months.
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