Alma Leta is a California-born, New Zealand-raised artist. Having moved to NZ when she was seven, Alma headed back to the US at 20, spending half a year there, living with her father.
Whilst she started writing songs as a child, and took singing lessons through her school years, it was in this period back in the US when Alma got a microphone and starting recording her own music. She has since gone on to work with producer Nik Brinkman on several songs, and Orange Juice is the latest single to come from her forthcoming debut album, Time Of Our Lives.
Alma looks to create music about ‘the complexities of relationships, anxiety, social issues and internal dialogues’, with lyrics being of particular importance, writing ‘in such a way as if motivated to taste the words’.
That mindset reflects a vivid, raw sensibility that exists in Leta’s vocals on Orange Juice, and in particular, in the awkward vulnerability of the song’s chorus. Alma’s lyrics are striking as she sings, ‘Whenever I miss you, I’ll be in my room, dancing naked to your playlist”. The production that surrounds Alma’s vocals is similarly distinctive, gentle melodies hovering like haze in the morning as drums snap crisply.
The song deliberately straddles a feeling of innocence and something more adult, as Leta describes the song as being about first love, experienced as you are becoming an adult:
‘I wanted to harness that feeling of falling in love at the pivotal point of growing up, where you are right on the cusp of change, but hold on to this pure belief that this love can persevere (through) anything.’
Check out Orange Juice below: