PREMIERE: Hear The New Single From Upstart Songstress Lupa J

Ascendant Sydney chanteuse Lupa J is barely free from the confines of high school, and already she's racking up accolades of the sort usually reserved for artists several years her senior.

Now, with a brand new single, Numb, about to hit the world's ears, The Music is stoked to be premiering the track ahead of Lupa J's forthcoming maiden national tour in support of venerated singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko.

Having released four singles over the course of her senior year in 2015, Lupa J also added several scalps to her belt by way of support slots for high-profile artists such as Japanese Wallpaper, Montaigne and Grimes, as well as signing a deal with WME Worldwide, through whom the up-and-comer says she has instantly broadened her horizons.

"[Signing with WME] has been really great in that I've started working with some amazing agents who are spot-on in their understanding of my music and the other kinds of artists I want to be associated with & play on bills with," Lupa J told The Music. "They work with a lot of artists I love — thanks to them I opened for Grimes when she played in Sydney, and I'll be opening for Sarah Blasko's national tour in April."

Numb's release has been some time coming for the Sydneysider, being one of the earliest songs Lupa J ever recorded, at the tender age of 15.

"Numb was the second song I ever recorded," she said. "I wrote it when I was 15, and it was the first song I wrote with really electronic-based production in mind.

"I still have all these excited notes I wrote to myself from when I first started making it that say, 'make techno style, kinda like Grimes!!!' It's since been through a lot of versions though; I sped it up, did an orchestral version for a school assessment, added in a key change, improved all the production — the only thing that has stayed exactly the same is the lyrics."

Numb is taken from Lupa J's forthcoming debut studio EP, My Right Name, which the singer describes as a more thought-out project than her earlier, more disparate efforts.

"My Right Name is quite a long EP; it’s six full songs and one interlude track," Lupa J told The Music. "Since I started making music I’ve mostly just made one song at a time, releasing them one single at a time - but towards the end of high school, as I started seriously listening to whole albums more, I began really wanting to make something more like a full, coherent body of work, and less like a bunch of unrelated songs just plonked together.

"The EP I wrote when I was 15, The Seed, wasn't as conceptually thought through. So I guess this is sort of my first shot at making something with the frame of mind you need to be in to make a full length album without the pressure of it being an LP; I tried to make each track like a chunk of a larger story. Because it’s based around a passing of time, or a slowly maturing and evolving mindset, it contains both very old, more naive songs as well as new ones that better reflect who I am now. Numb’s not the only early song on there; one of the other tracks is actually a reworked version of the very first song I ever recorded."

Lupa J will set off for her support run with Sarah Blasko from Wednesday 6 April, when the pair take on The Abbey, Canberra, with additional dates scheduled in Wollongong, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Bendigo, Melbourne, Norwood and Perth.

For a full rundown of dates, venues and other booking information, see theGuide or check The Music App.