A bitter orange-flavoured soft drink combined with mellow electronica create the sound of your new favourite Maltese-Kiwi Carla Camilleri, who artistically goes by CC(TV). NZ On Air Music featured the Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist on the NewTracks compilation this July.
Carla Camilleri. I was born in Malta and have been living in Aotearoa since I was six, living in between Te Papa-i-Oea/Palmerston North, Te Whanganui-A-Tara and Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland. I play piano, keyboards, guitar and sing.
I studied opera at the University Of Auckland for four years, which was super important to my development as both a musician and a singer. I really value the techniques and discipline that I learned during those years and I continue to apply them every day.
I play in the band Recitals, and currently play keyboards and sing backing vocals in Fazerdaze’s touring band. In the past, I have performed with bands such as Merk, Jonathan Bree, Kenny Sterling and Boycrush.
For a long time, I was pretty shy about sharing my solo music. I am always collaborating with others and keeping busy with other projects, but CC(TV) was always bubbling away in the background. At first, it was just my Soundcloud username and not really intended to be my solo alias as such – that platform was a safe space for me to upload rough demos and experiments without much overthinking involved. Through that I began to find my sound and develop the confidence to eventually share my music more widely via CC(TV) as a sonic identity.
I’ve been ‘writing songs’ since I was a kid, but back then it was just improvised rambling, essentially my internal dialogue projected into melodic form, using words that I overheard in conversations or on TV. In high school I tried to sit down and write music formulaically, but honestly that method didn’t really produce songs that felt like me.
Back then I mainly played piano and guitar, so my songs never really branched out instrumentally. My music writing really started to develop when I met people in the scene and started to collaborate, and over the years I think I’ve realised that my strength still lies in improvisation and tuning into my inner dialogue. When I discovered synths, that improvisation/experimental element really kicked up a notch, and I was finally able to improvise with sound and melody together.
Right now, I’m trying to find a happy balance between ‘traditional songwriting’ and ‘improvisation’ – I’m finding ways to harness that through learning new techniques and new instruments. I still have a long way to go, but I love learning!
CC are my initials and my nickname, and (TV) just followed suit after that. It’s catchy, and having my nickname in there makes it feel personal, whilst granting me a little bit of anonymity. In saying that, though, I’m still unsure whether it is the smartest artist name to have, because googling anything with CCTV in the search bar produces some pretty George Orwell-esque results these days. That might put people off, haha.
My first public performance of my solo music, which happened quite recently actually, supporting D.C Maxwell at Whammy Bar. That was a big milestone for me and one that I’ve avoided for years.
Well, aside from it being my first, it’s pretty different sonically from my other music, which tends to lean more towards the ambient folk spec. Kinnie sits in a more electronic, euphoric, dance space.
Kinnie is the name of the national soft drink in Malta (where I was born). It’s truly the most thirst-quenching drink on the planet, mark my words, and the song is an ode to my memories of the hot, 30-degree-plus summers on that island!
I think my favourite moment is actually right at the end, where the knobs on the drum synth that I was playing were so twisted that the beat ended up combobulating into the sound of water and bubbles. I can’t tell you how I did that. A happy accident!
I wrote and recorded this song with my friend Alistair Deverick in his studio at The Lab in Mount Eden in 2021. I was doing a NZ On Air Development-funded session with him, and for about half an hour we jammed non-stop over two chords he was playing on his Nord Lead synth ,while I twiddled on a Korg Electribe ER-1 drum synth. The rest of the song came out pretty quickly over that night, and I remember we were watching old footage of Malta while the lyrics came out. It was a really cathartic experience and a lesson in channelling lighthearted energy through personal memories. Usually I take a more brooding approach.
I’d also love to mention Amamelia’s contribution with her remix, because it was such a dream to have her on board for that, and she truly spun it in a magical way that really gripped my nostalgic harness on this song.
Go try some Kinnie if you can.
I really don’t know, it’s an obscure thing, isn’t it? To me, there isn’t really a formula – it’s more of a gut feeling.
Technically, it’s just me at the present, but I really lean on my friends for support. So thank you friends 🙂
I’m still in the early stages, so I don’t really qualify for single funding or anything as of yet. However, I suppose my advice would be (and is the advice I tell myself) to just be patient with it, and seek advice from people who have done it before if it ever gets overwhelming.
On Youtube I really love this channel called Haburu – just videos of a very content cat who loves to lay on or inside the piano as his owner plays it. I really love looking through the Bleep website and blog, they always have amazing musical recommendations. Also love reading through Audioculture, especially when they do a full deep dive on a period of Aotearoa’s music scene. I also love Hahko’s blog, the Hahko Express.
I have no business in surveillance.
