Lacking an appropriate moniker for her style, Dalton coined the phrase ‘electric blue witch hop’. “It’s the genre that I made up for my music, because I was having trouble categorising it into already existing genres and I liked the idea of putting some colour and magic into it,” she explains. “Electric is representative of the electronic side of it. I picked blue because I like quite colourful melodies. Songs and lyrics often conjure up colours for me in my mind and blue is the one that resonated with me most. I threw witch in there to put a little bit of that magical element into it, and it’s hop because it’s quite beaty music.”
Under the auspices of the Red Bull Prodigy Project, Estère teamed up with super producer and rapper Oddissee. Apparently, he asked her whether she wanted something up or down tempo and her response was that she wanted it to be “purple and see through.” Oddissee’s description of the experience and Dalton’s explanation of her musical style give rise to a suspicion that she’s one of the rare few who experiences synesthesia (it makes some peeps see colours in response to sound). Dalton confirms the theory. “That’s exactly what it’s like,” she admits. “I associate lots of music with colours. The colours aren’t always emotive though – say when a sound makes me think of blue, it’s not necessarily related to sadness, I just actually think of the colour blue.” Cool huh?
Dalton’s so goddamn likeable, everything about her is endearing. Take for instance the fact that she’s upfront about stage nerves. She’s got a neat way of dealing with them though. “I often say to the audience, ‘Let’s imagine that we’re hanging out in my bedroom together’. I’m often in my bedroom in my pyjamas, so I’m not used to being on a stage – it’s quite a special occasion. It breaks the ice a little bit, probably for me and them. Often I wear onesies and stuff. Actually, I once did a whole show in my pyjamas in a bedroom set-up and I’m planning on doing more of those.”
Her music’s going way further than her bedroom though – Dalton’s just been signed to No Format, a Parisian boutique record label. If that wasn’t exciting enough, straight after AWME, Dalton’s heading over to Europe to do a small tour to celebrate her signing with a series of showcases, and No Format’s going to re-release her self-titled debut album (Estère, which came out in April).
Oddissee’s not the only big name with whom she’s been paired: earlier this year Dalton supported Erykah Badu, with whom she’s constantly compared and who also happens to be one of her personal faves. Naturally, Dalton was blown away, but, sadly, the circumstances in which she met Badu were less than ideal. “I accidentally bumped into her – as in walked into her,” Dalton smiles. “I introduced myself, but it was more like, ‘Whoops. Sorry for walking into you Erykah Badu – I’m a massive fan’.”
BY MEG CRAWFORD
