Aaron Maine and Kaya Wilkins are established musicians in their own right—Maine has earned accolades over the years for the emotionally resonant, increasingly steely songs he records as Porches, while Wilkins makes soulful, intimate music under the name Okay Kaya, in addition to modeling at high-profile runway shows like Balenciaga and Calvin Klein (Vogue dubbed her the “girl of the season” last spring). But the dynamic duo just might be better together: the two have been dating for just over a year and their relationship has informed their shared style, both in terms of their clothes and their music. It even plays a starring role on The House, Porches’s just released third studio album.
According to Wilkins, they bumped into each other one night just over a year ago, after which Maine invited her to sing on his new album. As far as first impressions go, Maine remembers Wilkins’s white athletic socks and Dr. Martens sandals, while Wilkins recalls Maine’s then bleach-blonde hair (and expresses some mortification that she wore a faux fur that she had picked up in an airport that fateful night). It took Wilkins a few weeks to respond to Maine’s text, as she had gone back home to Norway to shoot Thelma, a coming-of-age thriller directed by Joachim Trier; the prolonged silence left Maine wondering if she didn’t really vibe with his music. But once Wilkins returned, they set a date to record, which became their first official hang-out after years of being mutual fans of each other’s music. “It only took one day to make the song,” Wilkins says, perched on the bed in her small, but light-filled Greenpoint apartment. “It was fun. It felt pretty organic.”
That first studio session eventually turned into the mid-album cut “Åkeren,” a poem entirely sung by Wilkins in her native Norwegian. It’s a rare Porches song that doesn’t feature Maine’s idiosyncratic vocals (aside from “Understanding,” a song that Maine’s dad wrote and sang). “Those moments feel so good and so much more of a truer reflection of my life,” Maine says between sips of an apricot LaCroix, of adding unexpected new voices to his album. To wit, The House finds him continuing to stretch the scuzzy, guitar-oriented sound of his earlier music, leaning further into the warm synth arrangements that characterized his last record, 2016’s Pool.
