Kate Miller-Heidke Glad To Not Be A 'Triple J Artist'

Kate Miller-Heidke's Nightflight was a different recording for the Brisbane songstress. Where her previous albums ensured her vulnerable songcraft arrived intermingled with a certain degree of quirk and theatricality, Nightflight stripped away most of her decorations. There was very little of the baroque-pop of her 2007 debut Little Eve and even less of the art-pop eclecticism of her 2008 follow-up Curiouser. It was a rawer, more honest sound. 

“I still love that album, surprisingly enough,” Miller-Heidke reflects of her 2012 album. “It's definitely the most honest I've been on record. That was very conscious. It still has moments of that theatricality, I think. Sarah has a little mini-opera bit. Humiliation is a little bit surreal. I think I wanted to tap into my folky roots, though. Having gone on those long tours of America with Ben Folds and seeing what really worked for those audiences live – I wanted to keep going in that vein.”

“You know, I think people can tell when you're being honest. Curiouser was a much more layered, playful pop record, by comparison,” she muses. “I think I'm just really getting into the craft of pop music and really getting off on the idea of being, you know, absolutely, unselfconsciously daggy if I want to be. The freedom of not being a 'triple j artist' means I can kind of do whatever the fuck I want. I'm feeling quite liberated, these days.”

Consciously or otherwise, it seemed to herald a new phase in Miller-Heidke's life. Having spent nearly ten years developing her reputation as a singer-songwriter, Nightflight has seemed to usher in a new era of experimentation for Kate Miller-Heidke. She's an increasing fixture within the English National Opera (having sung principle roles in 2012's The Death Of Klinghoffer and 2013's Sunken Garden) and is currently in the process of writing an opera of her own.

“That came about through Opera Australia,” she explains. “I sort of know [Opera Australia Artistic Director] Lyndon Terracini and he knew I'd been involved in that world over in London and obviously knew I was a songwriter and asked if I wanted to write an opera – so we're writing a show based on Shaun Tan's book The Rabbits. He's this incredible illustrator from WA and it's a big analogy about the colonisation of Australia.

“It's going to be an opera for children and adults. We're still in the early stages, though. It's obviously a massively project,” she elaborates. “I've never written anything like this before, so I hope I can do it. I'm collaborating with a guy called Ian Ramage, who has a lot of experience writing for theatre. Because of my classical background, I'm going to come at it from the angle of the singing – the melody and the harmony. Ian maybe will tackle the bits in-between.”

More