Legacy by CAITLIN (Caitlin Bradley) will be released tomorrow.
The four-track EP features fan favourite Light Leak, title track Legacy, the recently released What You Love and new track Attention.
Bradley said that each EP release captured a point in time for her.
"I felt that the music that I was making late last year and into early 2024 really sits together.
"I felt like my style was kind of evolving and those songs all cover different topics and things, but they’re all kind of in that indie folk pop genre.
"It’s a bit of a step further into my sound. I feel like I’m really starting to find my sound a bit more.
"My last EP was more of an exploration of a whole bunch of different styles; like you’ve got some jazzy stuff in there and some rockier stuff. Then in this EP, I kind of leaned back on folk storytelling elements."
She said she found it easier to find that sound after having a bit more life experience.
"The more music you do and the more people you work with, you start to learn how to describe the sounds that you want. It becomes easier to chase what you’re after.
"I didn’t really have references and things in the past. Then in the second EP the songs did have references but I didn’t know how to describe particularly what I liked about them sonically. It was all just ballpark stuff.
"Whereas now I feel like this music is a true representation of a lot of my influences. I feel like my own style of songwriting and production is starting to come through as well, which is really nice."
She released her first EP in 2018 while still at high school in Timaru and the second was released during her final year at Ara Music Arts Jazz School.
Bradley said she felt her music was more grounded than in the past.
"When you’re younger, the scope of what you’re writing about I find is either massive or tiny because you don’t have much experience.
"I would write songs about moving schools or I would write songs about climate change; there was no in between.
"Where I am with my writing now is like a mix of bringing in situations and experiences, but with a higher level kind of picture over it.
"I’m not trying to tackle the world’s problems and stuff like I maybe was more focused on when I was younger."
Bradley recently received NZ on Air development funding support and was named in the lineup for the Nostalgia Festival in Christchurch next year.
She said the funding support had taken a huge weight off her shoulders.
"It’s tricky to make money off your music when you’re playing original stuff. Pretty much everyone in the scene I know just does it for the love of it and the joy it brings."
She said the funding allowed her to experiment and spend time exploring music. It removed the stress of time constraints in the studio and meant she did not have to get everything perfect or risk "wasting money".
Her goals for next year are to learn more about the production side of music and play more live shows.
"Nostalgia Festival is probably my biggest festival slot so far. That will be really, really fun. I’m looking forward to playing that.
"Playing more shows like that is definitely a goal on the horizon for next year. But I’ll also be knuckling into my music production skills and trying to develop them so that I can have more of a creative control over what I produce."
Legacy can be saved and streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Feature.fm.
