Raphaelle Standell-Preston

Raphaelle Standell-Preston (born February 1, 1990 ) is a Canadian musician and songwriter, currently the frontwoman of Braids and Blue Hawaii. She releases solo music under the name Indiensoci. Her vocal style has been described as slipping "from exquisite sweetness to Björk-like yelps".

Beginnings Standell-Preston listened to Top 40 music while growing up and continues to love pop. She credited former Braids bandmate Katie Lee for introducing her to "music which is not on the radio". In 2012, she recalled her entry into music as having been brought about by switching "through a lot of different artistic endeavours. I wanted to be a painter, I wanted to be a dancer and I wanted to be an actor, then I just found music".

Influences and themes Standell-Preston has stated that the pop music she listened to as a teenager still influences her writing, in which she focuses on producing hooks, but without catchiness being central to her melodies. She described her lyric-writing process as being "a lot of the time, I'll sing for 20 minutes, then I'll go back and review all the words that I said and I'll type them up. I'll find a pattern or a theme. I'll start paring things together and see the intent of what I was trying to have during that outburst". The pair moved on to Western Canada High School, where they met Lee, Taylor Smith and Vince Man. Standell-Preston fronted the band as lead singer and guitarist, handling the "delivery and emotional content" of the music in addition to writing the lyrics. After the release of the EP, and their rechristening as Braids, each member of the band was accepted into McGill University in Montreal, with Standell-Preston turning down the offer and remaining in Calgary. After signing to Arbutus Records, the band's debut album, Native Speaker, was released in January 2011, winning critical acclaim and Juno Award nominations for Best Alternative Album and Best New New Group. The album was also shortlisted for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. In August 2013, Standell-Preston said, "With Native Speaker, everything besides the title track is so angry. I was so upset and felt like the world was really unfair".

The album was released in August 2013 to critical acclaim. After the release of the album, Standell-Preston expressed a desire to return to playing guitar again, saying, "I need to abandon something in order to realise just how much I appreciate it".

As Braids' Flourish // Perish tour neared its end in December 2013, Standell-Preston revealed that after recording the album in the confines of a garage, "for our next record, we want to try and embrace open space. We want to go to Arizona and rent out some weird place in the middle of the desert and just have endless space".

Blue Hawaii A meeting and relationship with Alex "Agor" Kerby ( Alex Cowan) in 2009–2010 resulted in the formation of electronic/ambient pop duo Blue Hawaii. After a trip to South America, Standell-Preston and Cowan released their first EP, Blooming Summer, on Arbutus Records in 2010. The group reunited in 2016 in Los Angeles, and a single, "No One Like You", was released in 2017. That same year, Blue Hawaii released their second album, Tenderness.

Standell-Preston has described the project's difference from Braids, saying "Blue Hawaii is a bit more of an outlet for the urge in me to explore what it really is to be a performer and to have face paint and to bring all the artistic elements into the performance".

Indiensoci Self-described as "very feminine and ethereal", She provided the live music for the opening of the Canadian Centre for Architecture exhibition "Speed Limits" on May 19, 2009. Standell-Preston released her second solo track, "Besnard", on YouTube in May 2010. The song was later released on the Flemish Eye mixtape Eye Spy.

Solo In 2014, Standell-Preston appeared on a re-recorded version of Jon Hopkins' "Form by Firelight", released on his Asleep Versions EP. She later lived in Montreal in a shared house with Kerby and Braids members Tufts and Smith. Form by Firelight – Jon Hopkins (Asleep Versions EP, 2014)