Welcome to an introduction to Mauritia. The vibrant indie pop five-piece are eclectic blend of hopa, heart-ache and everything in between. This is an up and coming band so we caught up with the band to see what they’ve been up to.
We hope the lockdown will be over shortly but it has been a great time for musicians to entertain fans on a personal level. Unfortunately for Mauritia, when a lockdown is sprung up it’s okay if your gear is at home.
The band said: “I’ve gotta say, we’ve been a bit off the ball with this. Way before we were in lockdown we’d planned to live stream some shows from actual venues, but when the venues shut that went out the window.
“Not all of us have our instruments either, some are still locked up in the studio so trying to play anything has proved to be difficult. We’ve been doing some subtle promo of our new single by dropping pieces of artwork here and there.
“We’re planning to do some live streams at some point or maybe Q and A’s with fans but nothing on the music front unfortunately.”
“…so we spent the next few hours trying to break in, navigate round an unfamiliar city, and not freeze to death…”
Speaking of the music front, the band announced yesterday they are set to release a new single called ‘Daydreaming’. Along side this release (out May 15th) is an interesting backstory behind it which involves a drunken night in Liverpool.
The band explain: “We had the instrumental of the song done for ages but lyrics and vocal melodies kept changing, that’s usually the case until we find something we think does the rest of the song justice. When we got into the actual studio though we still hadn’t written anything vocally, not sure why, there just seemed to be a bit of a mental block on it.
“Anyways, so we’re in Liverpool with Al Groves at the Motor Museum and we’ve managed to track most of the instruments. We decided a band night out would maybe help us clear our heads and spark some inspiration. Fast forward to maybe 4am, we’ve lost our bassist, Sam.
“Low and behold he’d drunkenly ventured off into the night, stumbled into a taxi back to where we were staying. What we didn’t realise is that Sam had the only key, and the front door is self-locking, so we spent the next few hours trying to break in, navigate round an unfamiliar city, and not freeze to death (it was December 2018, there was a lot of snow).
“And that’s what the tune is about. It’s pretty subtle, but it’s about sobering up, being locked out and trying to work out a way of not sleeping in the snow. It’s a fun song to us, and overall it reminds us of having a laugh at the studio, and what a bellend Sam can be.”
Mauritia’s tracks are firmly rooted pop authority with chiming guitars and big catchy hooks and they have been streamed over 200,000 times on Spotify. It plays an important role in helping artists reach people across the world.
“I think Spotify is massive for bands, especially for us,” the band explain. “We’ve built up a whole new fan base from streaming alone, people who otherwise never would have heard of us. It’s a huge part of our release strategies as it helps us reach more places.
“Streaming goes hand in hand with gigging for us. The more places you go and play, the more places people will start following your music and listen, but at the same time, the more places people are listening, the more places you can go and gig.
“It’s a weird balance that we’ve had to find for ourselves, but I don’t think it should be a band’s main focus. Similarly, I don’t think bands should not think about it.”
Well, there you have it. I bet that resonates with a few of you reading this. But to make this perfect blend of indie pop what influences their sound? The answer is anything and everything.
“Good question, it varies to be honest,” the band commented. “We’re five really individual people who draw inspiration from so many different things. We’ve got other artists we all really like, but I think influence comes subconsciously from everything we see and do. It’s a tough question to answer.
“Our sound is constantly changing. When we first started out, we tried to sound a specific way whereas now that we’ve matured a bit, we’re quite happy to experiment with new things.
“Without sounding like a dick, I think the biggest influence on our sound is how we’ve sounded in the past, and trying to sound better than that. That make sense?”
Yes, we think we understand guys! Finally, what is next for Mauritia? There’s studio time booked so they’ll be heading there to get two new tracks recorded.
They added: “We’re really excited for these two singles, they’re very different from what we’ve done in the past which is nice.
“We’ve focused a lot really on experimenting with different sounds and focuses so the first of the two has a big focus on drums. We’ve always written drums around the rest of the song, whereas with this we’ve flipped that idea on its head and written everything centred around the core beat.”
The new single ‘Daydreaming’ from Mauritia will be released on May 15th. In the meantime check out their latest single ‘Better Together’ below.
An introduction to… is a new interview series which puts the undiscovered centre stage. If you would like to be featured email getintouch [at] indiecentralmusic.com with ‘An introduction to’ and the name of your band in the subject headline to be considered for a feature.
