Kiwi pop singer Robinson wants you to dance - and cry

Robinson says she wants her music to mix deep emotion with dance pop. Photo / supplied

Robinson has nothing to regret, and everything to look forward to. The 21-year-old Kiwi singer-songwriter, who was born in Greymouth and attended high school in Nelson, has been building traction over the past year, signing a deal with Universal Music Publishing Australasia in February. She then released Nothing to Regret, an elated burst of pop perfection about the unashamed desire to unravel one's worries over a weekend of dancing.

Nothing to Regret bounded its way to 300,000 Spotify streams within two days of its release, gathering praise from international publications such as Refinery 29, Pop Justice and Idolator. For Robinson – first name Anna – that reception is mind-blowing.

"Obviously for something that you've poured your heart into, you hope it is received well, but for it to actually happen is another story," she says. "I kind of pinch myself, like wow – that's a lot of people."

The track, with its clean melodies and grand swells of emotion, represents the scattered shape of Robinson's past year. "It was all pretty random in terms of living and getting by – there were a lot of trips, and it was obviously amazing to be travelling but when you travel it's so exciting and everything's amazing, and then coming back it can be a bit of a low.

"The song was based around living for the weekend basically. A lot of my friends are at uni and are now working, and I'm a musician so my hours are completely different to theirs. It's [about] waiting for that time when everyone just wants to dance and have fun, and forget about all the little shitty feelings."

Robinson says she essentially came out of the womb wanting to sing – but it wasn't until her teenage years that she discovered her knack for song-writing. Through her time at Nelson's Garin College, a supportive music teacher pushed her to keep challenging herself, from performing in assemblies to entering Smokefree Rockquest. On finishing high school, she caught the attention of Page 1 Management with her song Crave You, which became a viral hit on its official release last year.

Through developing her writing over the past few years, Robinson is focused on keeping both acoustic and pop technicalities in her arsenal. "My aim for the whole project is to be quite well-rounded … It'll definitely be not one of anything. It'll be a mixture of emotional and upbeat."

Robinson: 'You hope [it's] received well, but for it to actually happen is another story'. Photo / supplied

She is working on an album, for which she is heading to the UK and Sweden in April to finish writing. Citing influences as broad as Jeff Buckley, Stevie Nicks and SZA, she imagines the album as a wash of blues, purples and reds.

"I see the blue as representing the emotional side of it – I am an emotional person and so I think to portray that in my album is really important to me," she says. "But then the reds and the more vibrant colours I can see as being the dancier songs, which will probably still have an emotional undertone.

"Hopefully people will be able to be like, 'Oh, this is sad, but I can dance to it'. It's almost like a spectrum of emotions. You can dance, and you can cry to it."

LOWDOWN:
Who: Robinson
What: New single Nothing to Regret
When: Out now