There’s no other way around: Fiora is a force of nature. Coming from the island of Tasmania, she embraced music in every form and genre since childhood and eventually landed in Berlin where she started collaborating with the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Nile Rodgers, Andy C, Tensnake and Audiofly, lending them her classically trained vocals and songwriting skills. This year sees Fiora finally embarking on an epic solo journey with the release of her debut single “Tornado” and a full-length album coming soon. We chatted with Fiora and discussed her rich background, biggest collaborations and secret astrology talents.

She’s From Tasmania

“I’m originally from Tasmania, which is an island south of the main land of Australia. It’s quite famous for that animal, the Tasmanian devil. In terms of the landscape it’s very much like Middle-earth, at least to me. In my 20s I’ve spent a couple years going back and forth in Europe: I lived in Paris, the UK and eventually landed in Berlin, where I stayed. I arrived there for a classical singing competition, which is quite strange. Very quickly after arriving to Berlin I started writing with DJs and producers and became a professional songwriter. These days I’m living between Berlin and Los Angeles.”  
 

Island Life Shaped Her Sound

We all know how growing up on an island helped Rihanna bring that much needed Barbadian swag into pop music, but what about Fiora? “What was good about [living on the island] was that sense of isolation," she explains. "It was a good and a bad thing. You had to really curate the things that you wanted to listen to and go after it. There was only one electronic radio show. It was on Thursday night at 10pm, I still remember it. This was before the internet. And I was involved in the music community a lot. My life was all about singing lessons, music theory lesson, violin lessons, I played in a bunch of orchestras, sang in a big band. I got to do everything. Because there weren’t a lot of distractions, you had to fill your life with your own influences and interests.”

She Knows How to Concentrate

“I remember when I first got to Berlin I was meeting a lot of people. You have to when you arrive at a new place. So one of my friends asked: 'When are you writing music if you’re having meetings every day?' You have to have that discipline to go back home and shut everything out and try to honor whatever music’s trying to come out. I practiced going to that place within yourself and reaching emotional stillness when I lived on the island. I think all creative people have that feeling.”

She Loves LA for Its History

Obviously, LA gives her a lot of inspiration, too. “There’s so much history there. People always go, 'Oh, Michael Jackson lived just by the road.' We were in a studio last week recording a string quartet version of 'Tornado' at East West Studio where Frank Sinatra recorded 'New York, New York' and Marvin Gaye recorded 'Let’s Get It On.' Thriller was mixed there. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. You really feel this extremely creative environment.”

Her Debut Single Is “Tornado”

“I noticed that I’m influenced by my environment. When I was in Tasmania I went through that phase where I was making fantasy otherworldly orchestral music in alignment with the nature that was surrounding me. Then in Berlin, which has an industrial kind of environment, I turned to electronic music. Then I kinda combined that with my roots. In a sense that’s what my debut single 'Tornado' is about. It’s a combination of aggressive industrial vibe with the otherworldliness that I always experienced in Tasmania, which is very much about dreaming as the rest of the world isn’t there.” Did she actually see a tornado? “We didn’t have tornados in Tasmania, but you do feel like an individual against nature there.”

She’d Love To Soundtrack a Disaster Movie

“Tornado” would indeed make a great soundtrack for a disaster flick, and Fiora gets pretty excited when asked if she’d like to go down that road. “I’d love to soundtrack a disaster movie! I don’t think I would like to star in one, I’m all about music. I don’t know why, but when I write orchestral music, it’s always a bit epic and apocalyptic like that, which is sometimes strange to me because I’m quite a happy-go-lucky individual.”

She’s Making Cinematic Pop Music

With so many inspirations and influences, it’s pretty hard to pin down just one genre Fiora’s working in. “I call it cinematic pop music. It’s always emotional, which is my classical background speaking. It’s essentially electronic pop music.”

Her Album Will Be Crowd-Funded

You still have time to support Fiora’s upcoming debut album, You Will Be Taught To Fly. There are several reasons why she opted to self-release it and avoid going to a label. “I’ve spent a lot of time making it. It was such a crazy pilgrimage. Then after all of that long hard work we started talking to labels and it was too slow. I just want to get it out. And also the reality is that these days labels want to know what you’ve done before. And since most of my stuff was working with DJs, you really just have to start. So we decided to do it on our own. It’s an evolution in process.” Why did she choose PledgeMusic as a platform? “We did the research and saw many great testimonials from musicians about them. It’s pretty flexible and some of my friends used it.”

She’s Got a Single with Andy C

One of her better-known DJ collaborations is the banger “Heartbeat Loud” with British drum’n’bass guru Andy C. “We wrote it a few years ago when dubstep was big," she says, "and it was actually Tensnake’s idea to turn it into a drum’n’bass track. I got a version of 'Heartbeat Loud' on my record, which is very different sounding, it has different chords. It’s truer to the original version.” She also had a fruitful collaboration with Tensnake. “The track he originally sent me was very minimal, so it could’ve become anything. But I could tell there was still an emotion there, which is very rare as I get sent a lot of stuff which I can’t connect with. And that song became 'See Right Through.' I worked on his record, he worked on mine. It really flowed.”

She’s An Astrology Expert

Fiora writes a lot for other artists, too, which requires her to be able to imagine herself living somebody else’s life. That explains one of her biggest hobbies (most likely inspired by her LA life): astrology. “I’m a closeted amateur astrologer," she divulges. "It’s pretty fascinating. The more you know about it the more it makes sense. You can actually get an astrology reading from me when you pledge for my album, they made me put it there [laughs].” Being born on June 21, Fiora is a Gemini and there’s a lot of good stuff Google tells us about Geminis (down to earth, likable, spiritual…), but Fiora already explained everything herself in this essay. I decide to test her talents and ask her to describe me, a Pieces. “You’re extremely emotional, very open-minded about sex and have witty, nasty sense of humor.” That’s an A in Astrology for you, Fiora!