NEW SINGLE: Danika 'For My Baby' + EP Announcement + WAT Booking Agency Sign

Danika returns with her all female choir for her explorative single
‘For My Baby’ + Announces Down Love EP + Signs to WAT book agency

"A smooth slice of indie folk, Smith’s gorgeous vocals combine with rolling instrumentation to combine a perfect showcase of why her profile has been ever so slowly rising" - Rolling Stone, Australia

Not all artists receive the musical education and start Danika did as an artist singing backing vocals for prominent Australian Artists including 30/70 collective, Allysha Joy, Sampa the Great, Tomgirl, Harmony Byne, and Emma Donovan and the Putbacks. However, Danika has made a name for herself as a stand alone artist led by her raw and honest storytelling, oozing rich harmonies with inflections of soul in previous releases and now in her latest single ‘For My Baby’, proving that she is here to stay.

Out now via Endless Recordings, ‘For My Baby’ follows on from ‘Coolshit Bullshit’, which earned Danika adds to official Spotify playlists Fresh Finds, Fresh Finds AU / NZ, Fresh Finds Folk, Indie Arrivals and Stay In Bed, contributing to her music streaming into the ears and hearts of 50,000 listens a month on the platform. Both songs lifted from her forthcoming second EP titled Down Love slated for release on Friday 10 March 2023, following on from the 2021 release of When Love Comes.
 
Recently, completing her first headline tour of 12 plus shows taking her from Ballarat, to Bellingen, to Beechworth, and finishing in Melbourne, Danika has revealed she has joined the WAT family under the watchful eye of Grace Robinson. Representing unique artists, DJs, bands and producers in the electronic realm alongside Bumpy, Mindy Meng Wang, Mildlife, Sui Zhen, 30/70, Wayne Snow and more, this is the perfect home for Danika.

For Danika, the purpose of making music continues to be about exploring the inner workings, as a way of self-inquiry, understanding and self-expression. When writing ‘For My Baby’, “I challenged myself to capture a feeling of love from a hopeful place, as most of my songs are pretty devo due to some challenging life experiences. As Laura Marling once said ‘love and pain go hand in hand’ and so I figure it would do good to imagine the tenderness of love, to balance out the pain it also causes, and to broaden my beliefs around what is possible in the name of love”, explains Danika upon reflection of her songwriting.

Featuring the uniquely familiar sound we’ve grown to know and love from Danika, ‘For My Baby’s soft gentle guitar, is layered amongst the percussion and drums of Hudson Whitlock (Surprise Chef) and meandering bass lines of Paul Bender (Hiatus Kaiyote), while Danika invites her 16 piece female choir to harmonise alongside her offering the perfect dynamics bringing her emotive lullaby to life.

A song about realising what some of us have come to understand, that many of the issues we humans have around our relationships with others are due to learned behaviours from childhood. “Nick Herrera and I experimented quite a lot with the production, inspired by the original home demo version. I sang the final part of the song with quite a different tone, and in the final edit, it's almost Childlike. So it's almost like my little kid version is singing the lyrics ‘no memory of pain can shatter this” aka, I’m not going to let my previous experiences continue to shape my current and future experiences of love”. - Danika

The last few years have seen Danika Play a colourful array of festivals, including Strawberry Fields, Brunswick Street Music festival, Good Times Festival, Iso-laide, Adelaide’s Porch Sessions, Wonder Mountain Festival, Inward Goods Festival, and PBS’s Drive Live. Her music has been championed by crucial industry figures including premieres by BBC6’s Gilles Peterson, Rolling Stone Australia, and a 7-inch record Pressed by Chris Gill’s Iconic Record Store and Label Northside Records.

Join the list of admirers drawn in by the wonder, awe and immersive sounds of Danika.

‘For My Baby’ out now via Endless Recordings

Down Love EP out Friday 10 March 2023

DOWN LOVE TRACK LISTING
1. Coolshit Bullshit
2. Better Weather
3. For My Baby
4. Down Love
5. Fuck You All

Upcoming Shows:
Saturday 26 November - Testing Ground (Trio)
Saturday 3 December - Urban Surf (solo)
Thursday 17 December - Brunswick Ballroom supporting Emma Donovan

‘For My Baby’ Credits
Danika Smith: Songwriter/Guitar/Vocals
Hudson Whitlock: Drums
Paul Bender: Bass
Produced, Mixed and Mastered by Nick Herrera

Choir: Amy Jones, Rara Zulu, Gaia Scarf, Georgia 'Sim' Simmons, Limor BenAhron, Astra Lavista, Kiki Shoe, Sally Gottleib, Kim Little, Juman Al-Ramahi, Hugo Schulz, Siobhan Housden, Jheli Emmett, Shanti Lane, Claire Kempton, Chelsea Storm.

Cover Photo: Bridgette Winten