Q&A with Malka & Amunda

We’re back with another special Q&A and our artist of the week champions MALKA & AMUNDA. Today marks the global celebration of International Women’s Day - a day to honour the social, cultural, political and economic achievements of women. Two of Scotland’s finest musical talents in Malka & Amunda have teamed up to mark this significant day with the release of ‘On The Up’ - we caught up with them this week to hear all about it.

Your brand new single ‘On The Up’ is out today on International Women's Day, tell us about this new release and the significance of releasing on IWD 2022.

We collaborated on this track at a time when I think we felt like we were both working really hard and having some personal breakthroughs. So it kinda turned into our own anthem about staying focused and becoming the hero in your own story. Releasing it on IWD 2022 is exciting because the world is opening back up and it signifies pressing play on everything you want to pursue in life, without having to wait.

Describe this new collaborative release in 3 words

Brassy, punchy pop.

Amunda, this marks a new solo identify for you - what inspired this move and can we expect more new music in the coming months?

I started making music when I was 16 and the bulk of that was spent playing in bands. I think I just wanted to explore myself as a solo artist and I am always writing new music. I started writing a bunch of songs in 2018 and they felt different, they felt like they were supposed to be for just me. So, this year I am releasing 5 songs. The first single “Did You Get That?” comes out on the 30th of March and will be released on Tantrum Records.

Tell us about the Hen Hoose collective; Why does it exist and what are your proudest achievements to date

Hen Hoose was formed as a response to gender inequality in the music industry, the numbers speak for themselves - only 17% of writers registered at PRS are women and only 20% of artists signed to major labels are women. HH is a way to highlight the talent of women and non-binary artists, prodcuers and mixing engineers in Scotland. We released Equaliser which has had an incredible response and we have also written the music for the Scottish Government Vaccine Campaign

Hen Hoose - a music production and songwriting collective founded by Tamara Schlesinger.

One album inspired/defined you as artists?

Oh that's a hard one. I have so many. I will have to hand this over to you Amandah

Amandah - Janet Jackson - The Velvet Rope.

What’s next on the cards for you individually and as part of the Hen Hoose collective

I will be releasing new music this year and playing some shows. I am playing the new AMPLIFY festival at Queens Hall in Edinburgh on the 25th May and a few festival dates that haven’t been announced yet. I am really excited about it all! - AMUNDA

I have just released a new single 'Not Alone' and have some festival slots to announce soon too plus I am working on some other little side projects. We have some HH news coming up soon which we can't wait to announce and we are hoping to do a second round of the collaborative project too. It's all go really. Tamara/MALKA

We’re head over heels for this brassy pop collaboration and you can check it out here. This is a triumphant release to mark International Womens Day and we are absolutely here for it. Make sure you follow MALKA & AMUNDA and keep up to date with upcoming releases.

Find out more on International Womens Day here.