Rising singer-songwriter Mikayla Pasterfield has emerged with her new single, “Heritage Listed.” Calling to mind Lizzy McAlpine and Noah Kahan, “Heritage Listed” casts a local lens on a universal sentiment of “home is where the heart is” – for better or worse. Effectively straddling affection and rancour, Mikayla pushes past nostalgia, harnessing the liberty of possibility as she navigates the complicated desire to step outside of one’s hometown, while not wanting to leave forever.

“Heritage Listed” arrives alongside the music video exploring suburban life, visually capturing a vignette of the town that raised Mikayla, traipsing through central locations amongst her friends. In Mikayla’s words, “’Heritage Listed’ describes that itch for a change of scenery, while still holding so much love and appreciation for the stability and peaceful monotony that you grew up with. The song is written as the internal thought process that goes into making the decision to leave, describing the need to give yourself permission before you can make that leap. It essentially says ‘everything will be right where you left it’ to ease the internal worry of losing the life you’ve built in favor of something else.”

Mikayla Pasterfield stumbled into music accidentally – a “high school scheduling mishap” that could never anticipate the global resonance of her debut single “Damage You Still Do.” The song has received over a million streams and millions of TikTok views with comments from Gracie Abrams (“YEAHHHHHHH”), Zach Bryan (“no sike. you’re such a great writer”), Chelsea Cutler (“Wow”) and more.

Honing her penmanship over the years with second single “Bindi In The Dirt,” a haunting vignette of a relationship through love and loss praised as “another striking example of Pasterfield’s songwriting prowess” (SXSW Sydney), Mikayla’s sights are firm on transforming her buzz into securing her place as one of the country’s next best songwriters, captivating audiences across BIGSOUND to shows with Laurel, Nick Mulvey, GRAACE and more.

Photo Courtesy: Tajette O’Halloran