Picture the scene: a striking young Australian-Italian singer recording a hit single in her pyjamas with a crazed big bald guy dancing around the studio shouting, “I am a woman on a mission.” I am of course talking about Gabriella Cilmi, the woman responsible for soulful smash and most played song of 2009, Sweet About Me.

At just 18, Gabriella’s talent, spunk and youth form an exciting potential for her to become a real musical heavyweight. After making such an explosive entrance to the pop scene, Gabriella has been working hard on her follow up with UK songwriting and production team Xenomania who can count Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue, Sugababes and the Pet Shop Boys among their success stories. But Gabriella is probably the first artist to have rocked up to the studio wearing her PJ’s:

“They moved up the road from me so I could just walk to there in my pyjamas.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Yeah it was really convenient.”

“Did you actually go in your pyjamas?”

“I had to do a last minute recording so yeah.”

“Why not, if I could come to work in my pyjamas, I definitely would.”

Xenomania’s relaxed dress code seems to have worked for the teen beauty whose disco-influenced single On A Mission , is out 7 March and promises to show a totally different side to what she can do: “I feel like I’m changing and evolving and I’m ready to unleash my inner superhero. On A Mission is quite an anthem for women around the world, really empowering, but I think men can sing it too and get in touch with their feminine side.” I guess that goes for big bald guys too.

A far cry from the casual jeans and warehouse setting of the video from Sweet About Me, Michael Gracey’s sci-fi extravaganza for On A Mission has elements of Star Wars, Barbarella and the Thunderbirds featuring Gabriella in an array of skin-tight cosmic outfits that make Princess Leia look like a frump: “Jane Fonda in Barberella is pretty hot I must say and yeah a lot of the outfits were inspired by that so it has that almost vintage space kind of feel.”

Gabriella’s rich, bold and mature vocals have been compared to the likes of Anastacia, Macy Gray and Amy Winehouse owing to the occasional fracture in her voice: “There are worse people you could be compared to. I guess Amy Winehouse put the spotlight on female vocalists who could sing. For a very long time it was very pop and kind of autotuney, people would just mime when they got up on stage. Nobody likes to be compared to ]]>