Estee | Sparkling love stories wrapped in dreamy bedroom-pop

We pick the hottest new acts so you can tell your friends you heard them first. Meet Filipino-Chinese singer songwriter estee who is crafting twinkling indie pop love songs from her bedroom.

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It’s hard to wipe the smile off your face while listening to ‘twenty eight’ – the twinkling bedroom pop jam from Borneo-born, Australia-raised, Filipino-Chinese singer songwriter estee.

It’s almost like she bottled up the exact feeling of love in all its unique experiences and managed to transform it into a blissful two-and-a-half minute indie pop gem – the emotion so authentic that you can practically hear her smiling behind every line.

While her musical catalogue is still in its beginning stages, Estée – AKA Estée Evangeline – has been singing and performing for as long as she can remember. From school talent shows at age 6, to her first ever recorded track – a duet written by her jazz-loving mother, Angelina Perete, called ‘Butterfly Baby’ which became a Malaysian Top 10 hit – at the age of 7, music has always been a part of her.

Only after moving to Adelaide when she was 11 did Estee start writing her own songs, going on to release her first single ‘Fifth Time’ at the end of high school.

Her sweet, vulnerable bedroom pop sound, infused with smooth, soulful r&b melodies and layered with honest, authentic storytelling quickly began captivating music lovers around the world.

A couple more singles followed in 2020, building on the promise estee first laid out with her debut, but it wasn’t until ‘be my somebody new,’ a collaboration with artist Skim.prod, that things truly started falling into place. Amassing over a million streams, estee was truly finding her audience.

Now, on her latest single ‘twenty-eight’ she is pushing her sound even further – creating another memorable pop gem and a track that is truly a gamechanger in her ever-growing catalogue.

Inspired by the likes of Ariana Grande, UMI, Billie Eilish, Clairo, Miley Cyrus, and SZA, Estee’s sonic palette is both versatile and unexpected while remaining perfectly comforting. Crafting starry-eyed, sparkling indie-pop gems, right from her bedroom estee is carving out a musical world all of her own.

With an upcoming performance at WOMADelaide 2022 and her debut EP on the horizon, now is the time to get estee on your radar.

‘twenty eight’ is about the really simple aspects of being in love, and just the feeling of love itself – whether romantic or platonic. Love is just really easy to write about because it’s such a universal feeling, and I wanted to write about love in its purest, most wholesome form. As for lyrics, I’ve always been someone who loves watching the sunset, and this song is totally centred around that image and setting. In high school, I used to go to lookouts with my friends all the time. We’d get frozen cokes, sit in the car, laugh and talk while watching the sun go down and that’s a really sweet memory of mine, and I tried my best to capture that feeling in this song.
ESTÉE ON HER NEW SINGLE TWENTY EIGHT

To celebrate the release of her new single ‘twenty eight’, we sat down with Estee to get to know her better.

Check out ‘twenty eight’ by Estee:

estée – twenty eight (official music video)

Watch this video on YouTube

The Estee Story

From the beginning

Estee: “I’ve been surrounded by music my entire life. My mum is a singer and her family is super musical. I properly started writing songs when I was 11 or 12, around the time I was teaching myself guitar on top of taking piano lessons. I didn’t understand anything about production until I was about 17, where it still took me a while to understand. I’m totally still trying to figure it out now.”

What you’ll hear

“Lot’s of people say my sound is super comforting and chill. I think there’s truth in that, and I think it’s also pretty wholesome and playful at times – I try my best to put a little bit of my personality in all of my songs and in everything I do.

“I’m not really sure how I came to it, but I think because I took inspiration from artists like Ariana Grande at such a young age, I’ll admit I definitely draw so much inspiration from her, mostly vocally. I think her lightness and tone has trickled into my work, but I still think we musically differ in a lot of ways.”

Influences & inspirations

“Ariana, for sure. But also artists like Billie Eilish, Jhene Aiko, and SZA. I think I incorporate little pieces of all of them in my work, which I think is pretty cool. I also like to get inspiration from anything and everything that happens around me. Could be someone on the bus to something like a flower. I usually gather inspiration from nature, I love the moon and the stars, and space in general. I think writing about nature brings up a certain feeling in everyone; it’s universal.”

On new single ‘twenty eight’

“I was in a writing session with Kanada the Loop, and ‘twenty eight,’ was heavily inspired by the sunset, and how I used to go to lookouts all the time with my friends in high school.

“It’s also totally about my boyfriend but I don’t like to give him that recognition because he’ll take that and run with it and tell everyone that he wrote my song hahaha! As much as it’s about him to an extent, I think it’s more about the feeling you get when you’re with someone you love in general, whether that be platonic or romantic. I have so many special memories with people watching the sunset, that that’s an image that I now associate with love and nostalgia.”

For the love of music

“I love that it’s the only area where I can truly express and be myself. Having it as a creative outlet is so fulfilling. As hard as it can be sometimes, I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for my love for music; that’s one thing I would never change. I love that it’s a chance to connect with people and relate to them. I love that it helps people in tough situations; I remember getting this message from someone online saying that one of my songs were helping them through a really bad breakup, and that honestly made me so happy.”

Kicking goals

“I’d say almost hitting a million streams on my song ‘be my somebody new,’ which is a collaboration I’ve done with Skim.prod! It’s crazy to me that we released that in March and have gotten such a huge response to it.

“I think hitting 1 million is cool and everything, but I think I’m happier about the opportunities I’ve gotten because of it. It’s definitely brought opportunities that will help to progress my career, which is really exciting because I can get really stuck on ‘what’s my next step?’ being an independent artist, so getting those opportunities really maps it out for me.”

Overcoming struggle town

“Dealing with my self-talk. I really do love making music, but I feel like I love it so much that I doubt myself really easily and can get really insecure about it. I’ve cried a few times after doing performances where literally nothing has gone wrong, but I can get really stuck in my head and set a really silly expectation for myself – I’m totally working on this though! It’s a process and I don’t think I’m the only musician who thinks like this. We’re as emotional as we are creative, and that’s what makes musicians awesome :).”

The year ahead

“Hopefully releasing a few more collaborations! I’m also working on my debut EP and intend on releasing it in 2022 sometime, which will be super exciting!”

Essential Estee Listening

Estee – Fifth Time

“The first song I ever released. I recorded the vocals for this in my bedroom at like 5am before I had to go to school the next day (I totally still do this). This song is about my now-boyfriend who at the time was NOT my boyfriend, I still get teased about this but it’s just funny how things work out. It was actually just going to be for my music assignment, but I eventually decided to release it because I was getting a good response from my peers. I’m glad I did because this song completely changed my life.”

Estee – Sleep Alone

“To be honest, this isn’t one of my favourites because I produced it myself when I was still trying to figure out how to even do that hahaha. It’s mostly about knowing you deserve better than what you’re getting and I wrote this during a time in my life where I was really trying to focus on myself and knew that I was deserving of good things. Not my best song, sonically, but I do love the lyrics!”

Estee – be my somebody new

“So the guy I collaborated with, Skim.prod (Sam Kim) actually lives in America! I think the reason why it’s done so well is also because of the number of views our promo of it got on TikTok on the day of release, so that song has definitely been a huge blessing to me. I recorded my vocals in a couple hours and he fully freaked out! Our voices blend so well with each other, so it’s been really cool to get the response that we’ve been getting.”