Dami Im
It’s a new era for Dami Im. Always evolving, there’s a continuum in Dami’s work that reaches back to her pop past while simultaneously demonstrating a creative growth that keeps an eye firmly on the future.
Sitting around her home studio as she plays a smattering of new tracks, you quickly realise you are in the presence of an artist who is entering an exciting new period in an already formidable career.
Dami hits ‘play’ and her new single ‘Lonely Cactus’ bursts through the speakers. Written with Bri Clarke and Andrew Burford (aka One Above), the tune is one long hook. It’s the kind of song you hear once, and then spend the rest of the day with it running through your head.
When the song fades, Dami takes a minute to explain where the inspiration for ‘Lonely Cactus’ came from.
“While I was working on promoting my last single ‘Paper Dragon’, I became obsessed with cacti. I really wanted to write a song about a cactus and it started off as an idea about myself. On one hand I feel lonely and want to be around other people, and on the other hand I quickly get annoyed and prickly around people and just want to be left alone. I took the idea to our writing session and we tweaked it to mean it’s about a friend rather than myself because everyone knows someone who is that way.”
Dami’s sure got that right. As we know, all great singers sound like they’re telling the truth – and maybe that’s why ‘Lonely Cactus’ hits so hard.
While 2020 saw the world enter lockdown, it also saw Dami Im release a handful of new singles which signaled where the artist is taking her career. Among them were ‘Kiss You Anyway’, ‘Crying Underwater’, ‘Marching On’ and the aforementioned ‘Paper Dragon’. It was around this time that Dami started working with producers that ‘got’ where the modern pop muse was taking her music. Dami’s latest collaborators include Andy Mak (Vera Blue) and Konstantin Kersting (Mallrat, Jungle Giants, Tones and I).
Before we press on, it’s worth considering a few of Dami’s impressive career highlights to date.
Dami won X Factor, she is ‘Eurovision Royalty’ (coming second in 2016), her subsequent #1 global hit ‘Sound Of Silence’ charted in 38 countries, Dami’s had four top ten albums on the ARIA chart and further hit singles with the likes of ‘Alive’, ‘Super Love’ and ‘Gladiator’.
That’s a lot of gold and platinum discs in any language … and in 2019 she was the Women In Music Humanitarian Award winner.
