Biography

Nadia Reid

Out of My Province

New album released 6th March 2020 on Spacebomb

No one ever got anywhere by standing still. As an artist, you must move to grow. It’s a sentiment Nadia Reid knows well. Leaving her beloved New Zealand for America to record her third album with strangers, what she didn’t expect was a family awaiting her; teaming up with Spacebomb, her evocative travel tales push explorations of love, personal growth and deep reflection beyond boundaries she ever thought possible. 

“Out of My Province is definitely a travelling album; they are road songs,” tells Nadia, of the album, written during a period of intensive touring following the release of her critically acclaimed LP, Preservation. “I felt inspired while I was moving and playing most nights. Sometimes good. Sometimes hard – there was this term I came up with called ‘digging for gold’ where some nights, you’d need to dig deeper for that feeling. During that time I felt really alive and useful.”

Therein is what marks Nadia Reid as more than a wandering troubadour. For her, making music is necessity and through it, she has found her place in the world. As doctors save lives, true artists contemplate their purpose on earth and like sending a postcard to her hometown of Port Chalmers, Out of My Province further marks Nadia’s wildly expanding trajectory, this time from outside her comfort zone; her dynamite vocal soothing souls to offer her own kind of healing. “As an artist, progression is key. I want to always be changing, pushing boundaries, to feel growth. It’s good for us,” she says. “For me, places are about people. If I connect with a person, I’ll remember that, more than an historic building or view. It’s my reason for doing this.”

Between European tours, appearing on Later…with Jools Holland and singing with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Out of My Province is the sound of a young artist growing in profile and dexterity before international audiences and whose world has changed before her eyes. “I took myself to the Amalfi Coast in Italy for two weeks. To get really alone. And to write. That’s where I wrote ‘The Other Side Of The Wheel.’ That experience bled into a lot of future writing.” 

Further travelling ensued when, sparked by the enthusiasm of Spacebomb’s Ben Baldwin after catching her set at Green Man Festival, Nadia found herself on a long transatlantic phone call with co-producer Matthew E. White. “After that, I had a good feeling in my gut,” she recalls. ”We got along really well. To know a group of people in Richmond, Virginia, felt so passionately about working with me was so crucial.” Finding herself halfway across the world and only a nearby Kiwi pie shop with its Kiwiana-themed delicacies and flat whites to combat any threatening signs of homesickness, Nadia took to Spacebomb with long-term “musical rock” and guitarist Sam Taylor. They joined Cameron Ralston (electric and upright bass), Brian Wolfe (drums) Daniel Clarke (organ, piano, and keys), and producer Trey Pollard, who would arrange strings, horns, piano, and Rhodes to give the album a depth in sound Nadia had always imagined; “When we arrived it felt natural and good. Trey had a strong vision. At times, stronger than my own. I sort of blindly ambled in. I wrote the songs and believed in them. That’s all I really knew. Everyone was extremely welcoming and positive.”

Completed in her hometown, Dunedin, “Best Thing” recalls PJ Harvey’s tender moments, and rolling country ballad “High & Lonely” observes her journey with immaculate maturity, as she sings “They say that suffering will make a woman wiser /  I have been asked if I am some sort of survivor / All I know is I have kept myself steady / I walk that line between the darkness and the ready.” Elsewhere the smooth waltz of each string soars on “All of My Love” – a modern romance written after a New Year’s Eve in Levin – and the freewheeling “Oh Canada” was inspired by her favourite artists Rufus Wainwright, Joni Mitchell, Leif Vollebekk, and Andy Shauf. “A lot of the world can appear so sad at times but on the other hand, life is so tender and beautiful; art, music, and nature become our balm. Watching people sing and dance heals me. Walking in the hills heals me. I feel privileged to be a part of that healing.”

The album takes its title from an interview with one of Nadia’s favourite New Zealand authors, the late Janet Frame, in which the interviewer asks if she has considered the supposition that she is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, to which Frame uncomfortably replies, "That question doesn't reach me. It's out of my province." Explains Nadia, “I was so moved by her response for some reason. I am enamoured by her books. I can re-read them at any time and take such comfort from them. So ever since... out of my province. That phrase has never left me.”

On ‘Preservation’ (2017)

“One of the year’s landmark releases” - **** MOJO

“Simply breathtaking” ***** - Record Collector

“Pretty much off the scale” - The Line Of Best Fit 8/10

“…Continues Reid’s graceful trajectory…” - Uncut 8/10

“‘Preservation’ proves that whatever she discovered on her journey, it was very much a worthwhile undertaking.” - Loud & Quiet

On ‘Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs’ (2015)

“Inspired debut by a young New Zealand singer-songwriter you’ll feel you’ve known forever.” **** MOJO

“Nadia Reid’s impeccable debut will maybe set a wider orbit in motion” **** Uncut

“The self assurance of Reid’s voice, artfully undermined by the lyrics, announces an artist wise beyond her years.”Sunday Times (UK)

“For a new artists, her confident grace is all the more remarkable” Pitchfork

“Album Of The Day” BBC 6 Music

**** Sydney Morning Herald

“When I hear a young artist making an album as soulful and rich and self-possessed as ‘Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs’, I feel so thrilled not only for the existence of that record but for all the music they will make over all the years to come”. The Guardian (UK)

“Nadia Reid paints a picture wise beyond her years” Line of Best Fit

“Just listen and lose yourself in it, for it is often glorious.” – themusic.co.au

“Reid’s voice cuts a determined path across the dark and at times stormy sea below.” – The Listener (NZ)

“…Gorgeous and engrossing. A wonderful stand-alone gem.” – Simon Sweetman (NZ)

“Love is sold on the promise that it’s better than any solitary satisfaction, so you might as well bet everything on it, time and time again. On “Call the Days”, New Zealand songwriter Nadia Reid cuts to the heart of this deception: “I was happy on my own,” she sings in a plainspoken lilt. “I would call the days as they were known.” Yet there’s no trace of vengeance in her deep, capable voice, and the surface of her gorgeous song remains steady, as a raga-like drone anchors rolling acoustic guitar and languid cello. Instead, like Laura Marling or Joan Shelley, the self-assurance Reid had once cultivated acts as its own safe harbour, turning the event into a meditation rather than a rupture. For a new artist, her confidant grace is all the more remarkable.” – Laura Snapes, Pitchfork

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17678-nadia-reid-call-the-days/

“Love is knowing what’s best for yourself. We grasp at straws trying understand what that is, but even in that knowledge, we betray our best intentions to get stupid about another person. On “Call the Days,” New Zealand folk artist Nadia Reid sings, “I was happy on my own / I would call the days as they were known” with a knowing yip, against a droning backdrop of closely mic’d acoustic guitars and longing cello. It’s a heartbroken song, but made self-assured by Reid’s warm, marbled alto. Phoebe Mackenzie and Emily Berryman direct this beautifully shot video for “Call the Days,” as the characters Nadia and Ross travel through New Zealand roads, forests and countrysides. Its muted palette is in keeping with the song’s calm, yet gray skies; they betray the days ahead.” – Lars Gotrich, NPR

http://www.npr.org/2015/09/22/442214396/songs-we-love-nadia-reid-call-the-days