October is about to have a huge week. Not only is the rising Kiwi singer, songwriter and producer releasing her new single today, but she'll also be walking the runway at New Zealand Fashion Week, with a major role in Zambesi's upcoming campaign.
October's big week comes after roughly eightmonths spent rigorously writing and recording new music. The first fruit of her labour is her new single Pure, a tornado of crackling guitars and propulsive drum beats that finds October - real name Emma Logan - shouting to the heavens: "I don't want to be pure". The song carries a punkier, more tangible sound than the opaque electronic atmospheres of her debut EP Switchblade - a shift Logan says was inspired by a desire to have her music fully realised on stage.
"During the time I was performing the Switchblade EP live, I realised how lacklustre and downbeat the songs were - they were really difficult to perform because of the mood and the tempo," she says.
"It always seemed so backwards and contrived to me to try and turn heavily electronically produced songs into this live setting, where most of the time they were just on backing tracks or triggers. I was thinking about how much of the song I could actually reproduce live, which is why I used a lot of crunchy live guitars and all those live drum sounds."
Logan began fooling around with GarageBand from an early age but properly taught herself how to produce when she was about 16. Originally from Blenheim, Logan later dropped out of music school in Wellington and moved to Auckland, where she has been refining her sound since.
Pure is her first release since last year's single Cherry Cola, which was swiftly endorsed by her labelmate Lorde. Now, with an album on the horizon and a starring role at NZFW, October is rising to the top of her game; a self-directed creative powerhouse striving to be at the forefront of music and fashion.
October's single Cherry Cola swiftly received an endorsement from Lorde. Photo / supplied
However, ascendance doesn't come without trepidation for Logan. Lyrically, Pure is about "sacrilege - and I don't really exactly mean that in a religious sense", she says. It's an internal conversation between authenticity and expectation, particularly as Logan comes to terms with her direction as an artist signed to a major label such as Universal.
"I just want to write good songs, whatever genre they seem to fall into, so I'm coming to terms with the fact that I was going down a more commercial route. And for some reason, I don't know why, that makes me feel like I'm not a proper musician, or I'm not doing things entirely in service to the music. Because I totally am, but they just happen to be in a more pop context," says Logan.
"I was also thinking a lot about what it means to be a female, to be feminine, to be a feminist... I've been a tomboy since birth, so I think of 'I don't want to be pure' in terms of upholding this idea of sweet femininity. But also, I'm entirely a female, and entirely feminine in the same breath.
"I think it's exploring what it means to be not pure, in every sense of what 'pure' means."
