INTroducing:PORTIA

ALTERNATIVE R&B SINGER-SONGWRITER AND PRODUCER, PORTIA, TALKS ABOUT HER UNEXPECTED FIRST STEPS IN MUSIC, THE MYSTERY OF INSPIRATION, AND HER DEBUT SINGLE, ‘SAVED’.

TIRADE: HI PORTIA, HOW ARE YOU?


PORTIA: I’m good! Busy and a little overwhelmed by life and the state of the world, honestly, but very grateful.

TIRADE: FIRST UP, WHY MUSIC?

PORTIA: I played the violin growing up and always sang around the house, but the idea of properly pursuing music crept up on me unexpectedly when I was in my second year of university. I’d spent a bit of time learning the guitar and messing around on Garageband, but when I was stuck at home during Sydney’s first lockdown, I decided to download Ableton. I taught myself how to produce and then started sending beats out to artists and posting them on YouTube. I remember being so embarrassed, hoping that no one I knew in real life would ever find my music.

 When it comes to my own project, it took me a really long time to forge my own sound, and even longer to find the confidence and self-belief that I’d ever release my music into the world. I had a desk, laptop and a couple guitars set up in my wardrobe and would write and record in there super late into the night, trying not to wake up the rest of my family. In those early days, I didn’t have much direction or intention. I was just learning and figuring things out as I went.

Any artist will tell you, there’s no real decision or choice to chase music. It’s something that comes from within, without explanation and with a natural urgency, so by the time I’d learned how to write, and then fallen in love with the songs I’d written, there was no other option for me.

TIRADE: can you describe the portia universe in three words?

portia: FUTURISTIC, INQUISITIVE, WARM.

TIRADE: INSPIRATION CAN BE SOUGHT OUT OR IT CAN FIND US. WHAT INSPIRES YOU?

PORTIA: My creativity definitely has a mind of its own. It’s quite stubborn and selective, so I rarely go looking for inspiration; it’s rare that I’ll be able to coax anything out of myself. I know a lot of artists watch movies or read or go for a walk to stir those creative juices, but that doesn’t work for me. Sometimes, melody or production ideas will pop up when I’m listening to another artist, but that’s unintentional. I’ll often screenshot things I read online or write down quotes from books as prompts for songs, but I rarely end up returning to them.

I’ve found that my moments of inspiration are quite subconscious and retrospective. If I’m really deep in an emotional state, I can’t sit down in front of my laptop and get that feeling out. Instead, week or months after the fact, a song will pour quite naturally out of me, and only after writing it will I realise what or who it’s about. It’s frustrating, not being able to trigger my own inspiration. I often go through periods of not being able to write, and I always convince myself that I’ll never make anything good again. 

TIRADE: TELL US ABOUT YOUR DEBUT SINGLE, ‘SAVED’.

portia: ‘That’s my first-born!

I wrote that in 2021 or so, about how the push-and-pull of toxic relationships can be quite intoxicating. I think honesty is one of my biggest hallmarks as a lyricist, and this one is probably a little too candid. The verses acknowledge my own capacity to be manipulative if I feel pushed into a corner by a partner. Not necessarily from a place of malice, but an attempt to level the playing field in an act of self-protection. The hook, ‘don’t really want you to go… won’t you come keep me safe when I’m cold’ is about that moment during an argument when things get super heated and you tell your partner to leave, secretly hoping they’ll catch on and stay and look after you.

TIRADE: DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS.

PORTIA: I work best at night, in my room. Proper studios are super stifling creatively, especially if there’s no natural light. I’m a huge creature of comfort, so I prefer to be in a familiar space, probably in my pjs.

 I always start with the production. I’ll settle on a chord progression first, something a little unexpected. Then the synth or keys sound, and any percussion or additional instrumentation. By this point, I generally already know if this a track for me, or one for another artist. I’m not the most deliberate writer – I’ll freestyle melodies and then pull out whatever vowel sounds or syllables I mumbled in the original recording, and try shaping them into words. It can be a restrictive way of working, but that’s how I’ve created most of my favourite songs. I try to get the topline and lyrics more-or-less completely written in that first sit-down, because once I leave that headspace I often find it hard to return.

TIRADE: WHAT WOULD WE FIND ON YOUR SPOTIFY PLAYLIST?


PORTIA: Recently, I’ve been revisiting a lot of my teenage favourites: ‘The Worst’ and ‘Stay Ready’ by Jhene Aiko,  ‘Test & Recognise’ by Seekae (the Flume re-work), ‘Malibu Sleep’ and ‘X.X.’ by Col3trane, ‘Hold On’ by The Internet, and the whole of Nothing Was The Same by Drake.

TIRADE: WHAT DO YOU DO FOR PEACE?


portia: Routine is the foundation of my peace. Cooking (the same few meals on rotation, but I find the process very therapeutic). Washing my hair. Doing my laundry. I’m a huge homebody.

Honestly, I’m struggling to find peace at the moment. I reach for my phone way more often than I’d like to admit, although it always leaves me feeling distracted and unsettled. I’m trying to be more intentional about the ways I spend my time, like reading and journalling, but my attention span is pretty shot these days. It’s important to be bored sometimes, especially for creative people. I’m definitely a work in progress in that regard.

TIRADE: WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?

portia: I have my second single, ’SHAME’, coming out on the 28th August, then my EP in late September or early October. This EP is a collection of songs I wrote between 2021 and 2023; they’ve been sitting on my laptop for years, so I’m eager for them to be free in the world. I’ll let that settle for a bit, then it’s time for a new era.

FOLLOW PORTIA

Instagram | SPOTIFY