Music is and has forever been immensely personal to those who both listen to and create it. It’s certainly true for Lenka, who makes music to express herself and all her emotions, and by sharing her works with the world, she allows music fans to do the same. She’s also an artist with an impressive resume of series-soundtrack credits, with her songs having been featured in Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty to name just two. Her new single “Ivory Tower”, the video for which dropped yesterday, showcases a shift in style and genre for the artist, but it still resonates with her own incredible, unique sound. PopWrapped caught up with Lenka to find out more about the track and what the rest of the year has in store for her.

For anyone unfamiliar with you or your music, who is Lenka in five words? 

Singer, songwriter, crafter, nature-lover.

Who or what most inspires the music you make and have your inspirations or influences changed much over the years? 

My inspirations have always been nature, stories, whimsical music from all different genres, metaphoric happenings in the world and the inner workings of my mind.

Tell me a little about your new single “Ivory Tower.”

It’s a bit of a departure for me, genre-wise and also because I’m singing mostly from the perspective of a character. She’s a rich-bitch Ivanka-type with the world crumbling around her, feeling like a victim. It’s a kind of 80s synth pop style and I just had fun with it. 

Where’d the concept or idea for the video come from?

To be honest it came from the creativity needed when you’re in lock-down and only have limited ways to create. It’s quite liberating I found. I just put on a wig one day and shot myself selfie-style in my daughters’ bedroom. Then I hired an animator to create a world of towers to be the windows holding me inside. It has a degraded vintage MTV video aesthetic, which we thought suited the song quite well.

What do you want fans to take from the song and the video when they hear or watch it? 

I hope that they see that I’m being ironic, but mostly just have a bop and enjoy the fun of it.

To you, what to you makes a song truly great? If you had to listen to only song on your I-Pod for a month or a year, which would you choose and why?

It’s nice when there are complex layers, a story of slights. An emotional journey. Maybe I’d pick Etta James “I’d Rather Go Blind” as there is a lot going on in that song and she sings the hell out of it.

How have you found the last year or so to be, personally and professionally? How has the pandemic hindered or helped your creativity? 

I found it to be creatively liberating. There was no pressure to do anything so that kind of opened up some new ideas in my brain. People have been excited to collaborate remotely, which suits me in my country family life. Also, it feels like you get to pay yourself on the back if you manage to achieve anything at all, so that’s a nice feeling for someone who is very approval-oriented.

Now that the vaccine roll-out is well underway and normal life is on its way to resuming, what have you been most excited to do, or are you looking forward to doing in the weeks and months ahead? 

I would love to travel. We are not allowed yet, but I’m getting the vaccine as soon as it’s available in Australia in the hope that we will be allowed to travel again in the near future! My and my family are lucky that we do live in a beautiful area of Australia that is actually a holiday destination, so I’m not complaining, but you just get that urge for something exotic or culturally different…

While tours and live shows might still be off the radar for some time yet, how anxious are you to get back out on the road and perform for a real audience again? 

I’ve done a couple of little performances and have another one coming up at a variety show. It does feel more special now than it used to. It’s like this precious experience that maybe we took for granted. Hopefully I’ll get to do more soon.

Finally then, we’re almost halfway through the year already – what does the rest of 2021 have in store for you? Any upcoming projects you can tease?

After ‘Ivory Tower’ I think I’ll just keep releasing the odd single track. I’m working on a few more. It seems to fit with my life and the way people listen to music now to just go one song at a time.

Check out the video for “Ivory Tower” below and for more information on Lenka, visit her website, give her page a like on Facebook or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.