I'm so happy to tell you about the new EP my friends Itty Bitty Beats and I just released!
This year it's been such a privilege to co write 5 tracks together with help from NZ On Air's New Music Kids programme. 'Find Your Rainbow - The Sunshine and Kindness EP' started with the idea of a garden of songs where children's emotions could be nurtured and supported through song. Coupled with Lucy's health journey with FND, we found the song making process therapeutic even for ourselves as friends and mothers, in creating songs we felt like our children and ourselves needed at this time.
We've probably known each other since back in around 2016 when we first met at the APRA offices for that year's Children's Music Awards. Jenny and Lucy from Itty Bitty Beats exploded into our New Zealand kindieverse in the most gentle and amazing way with their TUI award winning 2nd album Lay Your Head Down.
Since I was releasing my debut lullaby album Little Wild Lullabies that year too, we immediately found common ground in our songwriting and interests so it's super special to share this project with you all 7 years later! We have traded vocals on each other's tracks before, and we love working together to help grow the children's music community here in Aotearoa and connect with like minded artists around the world too.
Find Your Rainbow could have easily turned into 10 or 15 tracks - we had to rein in our creative impulses and definitely put a bundle of song ideas that we canvassed into the 'one day' basket to stay on track to create the songs, videos and artwork for this little collection. Working on melodies, lyrics, pre production etc all took place on messenger chats, zoom calls, shared google docs and voice memos until we had the shape of the tracks clear - it's amazing how far you can take collaboration this way.
We had one in person weekend wrangling artwork and photography for the project (thank you to Charlie Rose Creative) which happened to take place before we had even completed the songs. Having that visual direction set in place was an interesting creative angle, in that the imagery helped to direct the tone and feel of the sound I think.
It's really different jumping into work with an established creative team like Itty Bitty Beats - I've been a solo songwriter for such a long time, but I loved how our ideas process flowed so synchronously, and it was fun being part of a virtual team to amplify these tunes and the energy we wanted to shine out for families. Thanks Jenny and Lucy! go and check out their work - they are talented, and prolific and have the biggest hearts 🌸🌼🌈
