Valentine’s sweet collaboration

Margaret River singer-songwriter Paige Trantham has teamed up with US producer Jinco to produce new single Hitch under her moniker Valentine.

The South West songstress is normally recognised for her acoustic sets around Capes venues, but embraced the changes that have come with producing electro-pop music.

With musical roots stemming back to the early days of piano and guitar, Valentine said her move into the electronic music scene was daunting.

“I was really nervous releasing electronic, but all my followers loved it,” she said.

“I performed not long ago at Elkamo for Emergence Creative and I was so scared because everyone was used to me being an acoustic singer-songwriter, but the place was heaving, the windows were fogging, and it was just amazing.”

Valentine said switching up genres had not limited her creativity.

“I view my voice as being not that different from an actor or actress, where you can change roles or style or movie, so I don’t think as a singer you need to stick to a genre,” she said.

“I’d otherwise be quite limiting.”

Jinco first heard Valentine when a mutual friend from Esperance travelled to California on a surf trip and showed him a recording from a house party.

“He called me the following day, it was surreal,” she said.

“After two years of talking and working together over Skype, we headlined a massive gig at Metro City in Perth.

“Seeing the reaction to the song played live was amazing.”

Hitch has so far raked up more than half a million plays via streaming sites Soundcloud and Spotify, and Valentine’s debut EP is in the works.

Valentine will play alongside San Cisco and Blue Child Collective at Cabin Fever’s Lock-In gig in July.