Kate Boy

Stockholm-based electro-pop duo Kate Boy unites Australian singer/songwriter Kate Akhurst with Swedish producer Markus Dextegen. Akhurst, who launched her songwriting pursuits as a teenager back home, relocated to Los Angeles in the early 2010s and supplied material for clients that included High School Musical's Ashley Tisdale and Glee's Charice. Once in Sweden she crossed paths with Dextegen, formerly one-third of the Rocket Boy production collective alongside Oskar Sikow Engström and Hampus Nordgren Hemlin, both of whom briefly participated in the nascent Akhurst-Dextegen venture. The pair adopted the name Kate Boy to reflect the project's androgynous character and collaborative equality; their debut single, the icy, reconfigured synth-pop track "Northern Lights," surfaced in 2013 on IAMSOUND Records. Additional singles followed across the ensuing years, among them "Self Control," issued in 2014 as their first release for Fiction Records. That same label unveiled Kate Boy's debut album, One, in 2015, while The Remix EP—containing reinterpretations by Planningtorock, Clarence Clarity, Christian Rich, and La Fleur—appeared before year's end.