Her family still live here and she takes any opportunity she can to visit them. Unsurprisingly, she jumped at the chance to join the 2019 Grapevine Gathering line-up in the Hunter Valley.

It has taken Puru a while to find her groove. Novocastrians might remember her fierce voice cutting the air like a knife at intimate gigs that were a genre-defying fusion of jazz, rock and soul.

Then Paul Mac asked her to do a collaboration. Then Illy. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place from there.

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"I grew up loving pop music and pop music is something that I have always referenced, so it's no surprise to me that this is where I've ended up," Puru tells Weekender.

"I tend to gravitate towards whatever feels right at the time and this feels right to me right now."

Puru wrapped up a tour with Peking Duk, as well as her own national tour, and released the single Everything Is Better With You in May. Her hypnotic single Tension has been streamed 2.3 million times. The September 2018 release of her self-titled EP gave us Molotov, which came 75th on the triple j Hottest 100 and has clocked up over 2.5 million streams.

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Puru is busy working on an album she hopes to release next year.

Performing in front of increasingly large crowds is something that Puru has had to work at.

"It's always scary - performing is not an easy thing for me," she says.

"Being in front of so many people can be really intimidating, so it does take a certain amount of meditation and steeling yourself to be able to do it.

"But I definitely love doing it and I feel more comfortable with it than I did, say, six or eight years ago. There's something about it that is thrilling and rewarding enough to keep me coming back for more."

This year's Grapevine Gathering at Roche Estate on November 30 features UK indie band Two Door Cinema Club, Flight Facilities, Crooked Colours, Mallrat, Jack River, Touch Sensitive, Late Nite Tuff Guy, Lovebirds, Big Words and Arno Faraji.

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NEWS FROM NEWCASTLE'S CULTURAL SCENE