Kira Puru Brings Catharsis To The Dancefloor

Kira Puru

Is there anything Kira Puru can't do? The beguiling singer, songwriter, musician, DJ, visual artist and style icon launched her solo career making "doom-pop" after a spell in the experimental outfit Kira Puru & The Bruise. But now she's unleashed an inner "bad-ass bitch" for an EP of wonky disco bops. "What I've been feeling a lot is, I guess, tossing around this idea of fear and confidence and comfort and just fierceness," Puru muses from her Melbourne base.

Puru was raised in suburban Newcastle, exploring her rich Maori heritage and revelling in pop. A teen diva, she participated in karaoke contests – proud mum in tow. Musically inquisitive and expansive, she has had many phases since. Puru talks about chancing on an unfamiliar sandwich at a deli and savouring that new favourite every day until tiring of it – and, to her, music is similar. "I'll stumble across a sound or a particular style of writing that really tickles me and I'll get on that and just listen to that or do that and make that for a certain amount of time." On completing school, Puru performed as a guitar-toting singer-songwriter – being attracted to the immediacy of "reflective folk music". She then formed a jazz band. "I had a massive sort of jones for all of those big-voiced divas of anywhere between the '20s and the '60s." However, Puru broke out fronting another group, the post-rock band The Bruise. Their song Lonely Child was used as the theme to the ABC's Redfern Now. They folded in 2013. 

Realising that she was "over" Newcastle, Puru boldly relocated to Melbourne one winter (a friend "took charge" and drove her down). "I actually felt really burnt out by the music scene at the time. I decided that I was gonna move to Melbourne to give up music and be an accountant or a gardener or something," she laughs merrily. "But, immediately after I moved down here, I got some work with Illy actually, and that ended up sparking my foray back into music and into collaboration."

Puru gigged as a featured artist and backing vocalist, for everyone from Paul Kelly to Paul Mac to Urthboy. The creative pressure was off her and she could simply intuit. "I just kind of wanted to dip in and out and see what things stimulated me most." Puru developed a deeper understanding of her vocal range, aesthetics and musical values. "Also, in that, I learnt that I don't wanna stay still."

"I just want people to let loose and dance and have fun."

Puru re-emerged as a soloist with 2015's soulful "doom-pop" ballad All Dulled Out (and supported D'Angelo). "I've always loved pop music, and I've always listened to pop music, no matter where I was at – both in my head and with music. But I was a kid that had a lot of feelings – and doom music, in particular, and that kind of grim, goth, sad, dark vibe has been something that I've always been drawn to. So the marriage of doom and pop seemed like a really happy meeting place for me, 'cause I could incorporate pop structures and some pop sensibilities with doom-style textures and sonic flavours."

Last year, Puru aired the Spotify smash Tension – a groovy teaser from her eponymous EP of individualised R&B, disco and new wave. As a songwriter, she sought cohorts, settling into the studio with Evermore's Jon Hume. For Puru, who experiences anxiety, this interactive process was at once daunting and challenging. "It sort of allowed some insecurities to resurface." But she aimed to be "fearless". And, indeed, the ESG-ish single Molotov is arch yet carefree. Fly is like Kelis leading Blondie. The EP's climax, Alone, is existentialist gospel house as only Puru might divine. "I think, because I've spent a bit of time doing other types of music, and a bit of time in the industry, I'm less concerned with discovering who I am," she says. "I have more liberty now to just kind of play." Significantly, as a queer woman of colour, Puru has embraced disco's sense of liberation – the dancefloor representing a safe space for the marginalised communities to which she belongs. 

In 2018, Puru has much to celebrate. She appears in the acclaimed doco Her Sound, Her Story. Recently, she covered Katy Perry's "dope" Last Friday Night (TGIF) for triple j's Like A Version. Plus, having just wrapped a Listen Out run, Puru will be performing widely this festive season. In late November, she'll embark on a buzz headline tour with her band. Live, her new material feels "cathartic". "I just want people to let loose and dance and have fun – that's my main motivation when I play to people. I obviously pay a little bit of mind to technicality and being able to actually sing the songs properly," she laughs again. "But I just wanna smash out a bunch of undeniable party bangers and be free and have fun and party. I just want people to feel good."

Kira Puru (New Tribe/Sony) is out now. Kira Puru tours from 3 Nov.