MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 55
O
n recent covers of British music
magazine Mojo have been the
Beatles, the Who, Neil Young
and Leonard Cohen. All white
males and quite a few dead ones
at that.
Inside, however, the writers cover more
diversity in contemporary folk, electron-
ica, hip-hop, rock, jazz and so on.
The February issue was interesting.
Although Johnny Cash was on the front,
the cover-mount CD included a recent
Chills recording of Pink Frost, inside was
a Q&A with Aldous Harding (cryptic and
elusive as ever) and at the top of Mojo’s
office playlist was Nadia Reid’s Best Thing,
the single in advance of her new album,
Out of My Province.
With her 2017 album, Preservation, Port
Chalmers-based Reid – who has been
nominated for a Tui award for best folk
album, the Taite Music Prize and an Apra
Silver Scroll at home – confirmed her
place in the international firmament, with
acclaim in the Guardian, Uncut, Pitch-
fork and Mojo. She has been credited for
“saving folk music” by Billboard.
Last month, Britain’s Uncut placed
Reid’s Out of My Province in its preview of
important 2020 albums, alongside those
by Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, Tame
Impala, AC/DC and the Oh Sees.
Suffice it to say, expectation was high
for Out of My Province, which takes its title
from an interview comment by JanetFrame and speaks to an intellectual and
literal sense of separation.
Reid’s world view is now expansive; the
album, for the Virginia-based Spacebomb
label where most of this was recorded,
includes easy references to Stansted,
Canada, Norway, Spain and more.
The pop-friendly Other Side of the Wheel,
about emotional space and distance, camefrom a self-imposed writing retreat on
Italy’s Amalfi Coast (“I feel free for the first
time”).
Yet as sonically widescreen and geo-
graphically inclusive as some of these
songs are, they remain intimate and
conversational – notably, in All of My
Love, High & Lonely and Heart to Ride.
That’s even as they deal with themes of
disappointment, the rediscovery of love,
metaphorical departures and arrivals.
Self-doubt appears on Who is Protecting
Me, but she’s “making friends with who I
used to be” on the cathartic closer, Get the
Devil Out.Intimate
worlds
Well-travelled and
much-lauded Kiwi
folk star Nadia Reid
is easily among the
best in the business.
As sonically widescreen
and geographically
inclusive as some of
these songs are, theyremain intimate and
conversational.MUSIC
by Graham ReidO
ut of My Province bristles with
confidence, with a stronger vocal
delivery than on past albums, astute
arrangements for strings and horns and 10
discrete, memorable songs.
Reid’s melodies remain elegantly poised,
her intelligent lyrics are delivered with
clarity and the songs are acoustic-framed
and reflective. But some also come as
chiming folk rock, like the radio-friendly
Oh Canada in which she sings “all the
travelling I have done, I don’t know what
I’m looking for”.
That doesn’t quite ring true on this
evidence. Reid has created herself a
secure, assured place with this intriguing,
sophisticated and memorable collection.
In previous decades, excitement at
international acceptance of New Zealand
artists was often burdened with cultural
cringe or a Sally Field moment: “You like
us, you really like us!”
Now, we simply note international
success because our artists are on the same
playing field. And as often as not, as Reid
proves here, we’re beating them at their
own game. l
OUT OF MY PROVINCE, by Nadia Reid
(Spacebomb Records/Rhythmethod), released
on March 6.Nadia Reid plays Cassels Blue Smoke,
Christchurch, on March 6; Pah Homestead,
Auckland, on March 7 and 8; and Shed 6,
Wellington, on March 12.Nadia Reid: elegantly
poised melodies.