Kyla La Grange returns, and this time her music is brighter, bolder. There has been a shift towards a subtly emotional electronic pop smartness. Her forthcoming second album, the follow-up to 2012’s Ashes, represents an absorbing new direction for the singer-songwriter, with a sense of initiative, determination, and a wholly fresh musical approach.

In the aftermath of the release of Ashes, Kyla went to South Africa, where her mother’s side of the family are from, and stayed with grandparents and an aunt during Christmas. Feeling relaxed and far from the pressures of the music industry, she began writing songs again. Only this time, she swapped her guitar for Garageband, and a relic from her youth: “My mum found an old keyboard from when I was 12, with all these crap but really good sounds – xylophones and kalimbas and ‘80s samples – and it was really fun,” she recalls. “It reminded me of when I was younger and I would force my friends to go into my basement with me and write songs in a corner.”