Pastiche is a Dublin-based pop singer who’s keeping her real name quiet, for now. Having stormed onto the scene with a series of lockdown singles, her early experiments with the fringes of the pop scene have a slightly offbeat feel, blending electronic leanings with punchy lyrics and a big, boisterous sound.
The journey has already taken her far enough to be booked into the iconic Academy venue before having played a single live show.
“It’s been crazy,” she says. “Such a rollercoaster. It was interesting trying to navigate releases in a fully online world when we were in lockdown. I released my first single ‘Chasing Down The Fame’ in November 2020, mid-pandemic, and just tried to work it out as I went along.”
“I’m lucky to know a lot of people in the industry who really helped me find my feet, but if I’m being fully honest, lockdown was a weird kind of blessing for an artist like me. The whole world was at a standstill and I had all this time on my hands. It genuinely felt like I was working with borrowed time and so I could write, produce, plan, strategise and conceptualise a lot of work in a pretty short time.”
“I do believe making the most of this helped me to achieve in just one year what a lot of new artists take years to do independently. Between my streaming and radio numbers and press coverage, everything I put all that time and energy into is really beginning to pay off. I was lucky enough to play an intimate gig in The Workmans Club as well as my sold out debut headliner in Whelan’s in November.”
“I plan on doing many more shows in 2022 and next summer I’m going to hit the festival season hard! I am fully aware that things can change in an instant, but because I came up in this really weird time I feel able to navigate it. It’s unconventional but I’m not a conventional artist and I don’t plan on changing that anytime soon.”
Single ‘Bad Loser’, her latest, is firmly leveled at mental health issues, a topic close to Pastriche’s heart. “I’ve had my fair share of bad days and, for me, writing about those experiences allows me to indulge in myself and my feelings without being able to go over a ledge,” she explains.
“It’s therapeutic and the feeling I get when I share it with others is really a relief because I realise that I am not alone. I’m a firm believer in ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’. It seems like young people today are so much more in touch with their feelings and emotions than the generations before us, which is a good thing.”
When it comes to bringing the singles into the wider world, it feels like the ending of restrictions will be like pressing a ‘go’ button on Pastiche’s career, one that’s been built so successfully from behind a screen.
“Short term, I hope to have an EP out in the world, play lots more gigs and do all the things I couldn’t do because of lockdown,” she says of her plans. “Long term, I want to write for other artists, I want to tour, I want to get a publishing deal and a record deal. I want to be the biggest pop artist in Ireland and I want to take that across the pond and beyond. Sure, the world is working a little differently now – but I’ll figure it out.”
