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Canadian Country music sensation ANNIKA recently released her new single along with a stunningly elegant video to accompany the song, Encore. A duet with chart-topping, Platinum-selling, JUNO, and CCMA award-winning Canadian country superstar, Brett Kissel.
I had the chance to connect with ANNIKA and we had such a lovely chat about her new music. After congratulating her, we dove right into chatting about the song and she gave me all the details of how Encore came to be.
“I wrote the song with 4 of my friends, all males and it was initially intended for a male artist. However, after it was written I feel in love with it! I wanted it and I wanted to record it myself! I thought to myself, yes it could be sung by a woman, but really what would make it amazing, if it were to become a duet! At the top of my list was Brett Kissel, he has an incredible voice and I thought our voices would sound great together. After messaging him about it, he responded within 10 minutes with an enthusiastic yes!
We then recorded the song in studio together, it was just as wonderful as I had imagined and here we are today when fans can actually listen to it!”
I commented on how perfect their voices match. Truly their harmonies are a perfect match made in heaven!
ANNIKA replied with a humbled “Thank you!” And continued on to speak about Brett. “I think it is actually pretty cool because I don’t think Brett has gotten to sing a lot of songs like this and I think it showcases his vocals and a different side of his voice. Which I think is really special that this song got to showcase that side of him too!”
I then followed up with asking her what it was like to work with Brett Kissel on the project.
“It honestly was a lot of fun! I’ve seen Brett in many different situations. I have sang backup for him and my husband is a drummer in his band and he also had brought Leaving Thomas, when I was apart of that duo, on stage with him to perform. So with having seen him in many different scenarios I wasn’t overly nervous to see him. But I was a little nervous about singing in front of him. There are always a little bit of nervous to sing in front of an artist you admire. Of course he was nothing but wonderful, so kind and just so great! He knocked it out of the park and it was all my dreams of the song coming true. It really was so much fun! We keep saying we can’t wait until we can do this live together, we really think it will make for a great performance. Even just performed with a simple piano accompaniment. That is what we tried to do with production of it, keep it really simple and let the voices be the highlight, which I think was accomplished!” I couldn’t agree more!
The duo have also released a beautiful, simple but elegant video that is the perfect way to highlight the song and their incredible voices. ANNIKA actually has had a very busy and exciting year as she also became a new mom!
“We actually shot the video when I was 7 and 1/2 months pregnant and did all the promo work for it too. I remember thinking ok, everything has to be shot from the chest up and even with that I wore heels and thought what was I thinking, am I going to make it!?!? I even thought how cool this will be to look back on and say to my son, you were even apart of my music video before you were born! But it was a lot of fun and the video turned out very beautiful and simple, exactly what I had envisioned. Travis Nesbitt, who directed it, really brought the vision to life. It really supports the song! It highlights the music, just the two of us singing together and our vocals. We are very happy with it!”
ANIKA released her first single earlier this year, I Really Don’t Want To, as her first solo release and reintroduction into the country world. She hit us with a powerful first single and now having dropped two more, including Encore, well let’s just say we are definitely left wanting more! She gave me some details on what we can look forward to!
“It was very exciting releasing my first single and that fans were excited to hear me again and my new sound as a solo artist! So now we have released a few songs and this is just the beginning to an end goal of releasing an album. The thing about me is that I write a lot of songs and I have trouble choosing what songs to record. So I am going to release a double sided album, so there is going to be 14 songs, a side A and side B. Then a deluxe album featuring 15 songs which I’m hoping to release on vinyl as well. It is really a volume of work, that I am releasing songs every two to three months, then at the end of it we will have this full album!”
We will have to wait until sometime in 2022 when ANNIKA will be releasing her first solo album, but as she releases her music for us we have plenty to look forward to hearing from her and enjoy!
There is no doubt that ANNIKA is well on her way to a very successful solo career!
TheCountryMill 
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