Danelle Sandoval returns with Hands, the second single from her forthcoming EP, For Love.
A collaboration with Toronto producer French Braids, the track sees the singer continue her exploration into left of center pop music through modern Toni Braxton and Mariah Carey-inspired vocals. “Hands” came from a new rush of creative inspiration after leaving her home of Los Angeles to pursue her love of music in Toronto. It is in Toronto where Danelle refined her creative passion and where “Hands” came to be.
“I was in a weird creative funk in LA. I kept going to sessions not knowing what to write or just didn’t connect with what I was writing about. I lived in LA practically all my life and at some point I started to feel a little jaded. It wasn’t until I wrote with French Braids in LA who was visiting from Toronto where things started to really click. From there, I made the most spontaneous decision of my life to semi-base myself in Toronto and split time between cities.”
Sandoval is an artist who seeks out the authentic moments in music, and while her love of music was primed in the glossy world of LA, she was drawn to the experimental music scene in Toronto, Canada to create something truly representative of herself. With the help of Canadian producer French Braids, Sandoval has found what she had been searching for, boundless and authentic to herself and “Hands” was created in a way that was free without any rules.
“It’s really cool because out here in Toronto, especially with Toronto producers, they really don’t mind being experimental or stepping out of the box. It’s the perfect match for my very LA pop-structured mindset with writing. Toronto is the place where I reconnected with myself and was able to found the artist in me again. To just be free, make whatever sound I wanted to and really write however I wanted to.”
Danelle Sandoval has been singing her entire life and has always been surrounded by music. She began writing songs at age 10 and learned guitar at age 12. Some of her most important memories from growing up are of the music that her Filipino mother would play her, something that she’s taken into her inspirations along with the hip-hop and R&B of her adolescence. As a teenager, she released music on MySpace, and during her last semester of college, Sandoval took to YouTube to get her creative musical sense out in the form of simple, engaging covers of Lana Del Rey’s musical library, and things took off.
Since then, Sandoval has crafted her biggest hit to date, a cover, and re-envisioning of ILOVEMAKKONEN’s hit track, “Tuesday” got her on the global scene and a Global Electronic Music award nomination. Her first single of 2018, “Chairs” was released by Majestic Casual Records and landed her on the cover of Spotify’s Indie Pop Chillout playlist.
You can download ‘Hands’ here.
