About MICHELLE
MICHELLE first started because producers Julian Kaufman and Charlie Kilgore wanted to write an album celebrating their love of New York City. All 6 members of the group grew up there, and their fluorescent R&B encapsulates the best the city has to offer: the glow of neon lights bouncing off rain-slicked streets, the taste of a sticky mango purchased on a summertime Q train.

But over the last few years, the band has spent a lot of time away from home. Amid the success of 2018’s HEATWAVE, and 2022’s AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS, they traveled the U.S. and Europe opening for Gus Dapperton, Arlo Parks, and Mitski, headlining their own shows, and playing festivals. It was an experience that shifted their perspective and sense of place.

While writing their new album, Songs About You Specifically, MICHELLE decided to rent out a house in Ojai, California for three weeks. They were surrounded by dry heat, lizards, the smell of ripe cactus fruit. Suddenly everything was quieter, slower. “The mornings were so nice,” Sophia D’Angelo says of this time. “We would all make coffee and journal on a picnic table outside. We would usually split up into two groups of three. Whoever finished writing first made dinner and then the other group would clean the dishes.”

Surrounded by endless expanses of sand, they experienced a sense of freedom and solitude they hadn’t before. “It felt like a weird fairytale place to be writing an album,” Charlie Kilgore adds. “People would go on long walks and see dilapidated cement pipes, weird water towers. There was a real feeling of, ‘Oh, we’re alone here.'”

The experience shifted the tone of their work. While their earlier music channeled the churning restlessness of the city, these news songs meander and expand. MICHELLE will always know how to write a delicious hook: soaring indie pop track “Mentos and Coke” oozes with intoxicating sweetness and synth pop number “Oontz” eases effortlessly into a silky groove, even as both songs detail unstable relationships. But, throughout much of the record, the band let riffs simmer and melodies drift. The distorted vocals on “Trackstar” diffuse into a starry reverie. The synth notes on “Painkiller” float by breezily as MICHELLE sing about running away from their feelings.

The months spent touring, as well as the experience of living together in Ojai, fostered new bonds between the band. “There are friends I’ve had for almost my whole life who I won’t know as intimately as I know members of this group,” Emma Lee says. “There isn’t really an opportunity for that in any other kind of relationship in your life.” The sense of trust and comfort they fostered with each other allowed them to be more candid and vulnerable in their songwriting too. “It’s so easy to write a generic love or breakup song,” Julian Kaufman says. “But many of these stories are true. We’re coming from a really honest place.”

Part of that honesty involves self-reflection. Whether they’re apologizing for being away so often on “Missing On One,” admitting to numbing their negative emotions on “Painkiller,” or lusting after someone while in a relationship on “Akira,” there is poignant bittersweetness to these songs because MICHELLE reveal their mistakes and regrets as clearly as they do their desires. It makes for textured, deeply compelling music that reveals what it means to be human: constantly yearning, chasing, loving, faltering, and restarting, in no particular order.

Without friends or loved ones to hold you accountable, to witness your life and push you to engage with its jagged and unsavory bits, it is easy to airbrush your reality. But, while making Songs About You Specifically, MICHELLE slowed down, cut out any distractions, and fostered a sense of communal closeness that necessitated honesty. They ended up with a collection of songs that feel like the truth.

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About AYONI
A generational talent, Ayoni is a dynamic singer, songwriter, producer, instrumentalist from Barbados making waves across the music industry. With her soaring, soulful Pop/R&B vocal stylings, Ayoni has garnered millions of streams and has received widespread acclaim from prominent publications such as OnesToWatch, The Fader, Essence, V Magazine and more. Having lived in Singapore, Indonesia, and the United States, she developed a global worldview, absorbing a variety of experiences, while nurturing her ever-evolving passion for creating and performing music.

In June 2023, Ayoni had her big screen debut at the Tribeca Film Festival starring in the documentary, “Uncharted,” produced by Alicia Keys and She Is The Music, which follows her journey and those of other BIPOC women creators in the music industry. She would go on to release a song titled “Purpose” that she wrote during the making of the film.

Ayoni has collaborated with other creatives such as Ricky Reed, Snakehips, Full Crate, Michael Calfan, and Kabwasa. She is a featured artist on 2 songs on Noname’ s critically acclaimed “Sundial” album and in October of 2023 performed the song “boomboom” with Noname on NPR’s Tiny Desk. In December 2023 Ayoni was chosen as an artist in residence for the Sofar Sounds London Residency. To kick off the new year, Ayoni released a music production & vocal pack with Splice in January. Then on February 22nd, she stepped into her next creative chapter and onto the global stage with the release of her new single, “Bitter In Love” – A COLORS SHOW with COLORS Studios to critical acclaim. In the Spring, Ayoni was the 2024 Gibson Guitar Spotlight Artist for the month of April. She will release the first single from her debut album “ISOLA”, titled “San Francisco” on October 18th, with ISOLA releasing summer of 2025.

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