As her second album looms, Dunedin singer-songwriter Nadia Reid steadies herself for a new chapter, writes Shane Gilchrist.
As you read this, Nadia Reid will be somewhere on the road between Brighton and York, a few shows into a 12-date tour of the United Kingdom and Europe. Her opening concert in Todmorden, home to her fledgling British record label Basin Rock? Done. An in-studio performance for BBC6? Dusted.
The reason for all this activity is the Dunedin singer-songwriter’s forthcoming album, Preservation. Due for release in less than three weeks, it is Reid’s second full-length effort and significant for a range of reasons.
Top of the list is the fact it follows Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs, the debut that had critics far and wide praising the strength of Reid’s lyricism and delivery: "Remarkable talent, assured, clever and confident," wrote The Guardian; ‘‘a confident grace’’ Pitchfork praised; ‘‘a young New Zealand singer-songwriter you’ll feel you’ve known forever’’, MOJO asserted. One critic even hailed her as the saviour of folk music.
Yet, as the ripple effects of the advance copies of Preservation flow outward, generating a steady wave of requests for interviews here and overseas, Reid is doing a fine job of dealing with - or at least masking - any burden of expectation.
Let’s go back a few weeks, to an Octagon cafe, 9.30am on a Monday, before Reid had to pack her guitars (and less important items) and leave, firstly, for a few industry-type assignments in Auckland then the northern hemisphere.
Tucked into a corner where the only obvious pressure is that of an espresso machine’s intermittent hisses, Reid speaks calmly and openly. Her gaze is direct. She wants to discuss the future, whatever it might hold.
Yes, there is a sense of expectation, of hope that all the effort that has gone into Preservation - or, in fact, any of Reid’s songs -will amount to something resembling a career, or at least a way to cover the bills.
Yes, she has quit her part-time jobs, stepping beyond the threshold that separates security and risk, a move she describes as "frightening" but also "amazing". The fact Reid doesn’t have to get out of bed particularly early has left her feeling guilty at times. She thinks it might take some time to get over that. She also thinks she could get used to it.
"Of course, every creative person wants to do their art all the time," she says.
"It basically happened because of my desire to want to do it. Also, I got a publishing deal (and a manager) so that allowed me to have the security to think I could do this for a year and, in the worst case, just get a job, or return to university (she completed a poetry paper late last year)."
Reid completed her first European tour last May. Equal parts challenging and rewarding, the month or so on the road gave her a sense of possibilities.
"I came back feeling better for having done so many shows. I think every musician needs to do that. You have to tour and go through those extreme emotions.
"I felt that tall poppy thing come out: we’d sold out a few shows and people were really into it and I was thinking, ‘this is s***’. It was quite confronting. I thought I was prepared and I had to think deeply about my reasons for doing music. I realised how much of a comfort that music had been for me. It has been this constant through my life."
Those who have witnessed Reid perform might agree she exudes a calm confidence, conveyed by the power of her voice and the assuredness of her fingerstyle guitar technique. Yet she confesses those closest to her are privy to her doubts.
"I don’t feel composed all the time. That sounds like I’m contradicting myself ... There are other details; questions around funding, making enough money, are we going to die on the plane ..." she trails off. (Yes, she hates flying, but knows she has to get used to the idea).
Clearly, much has happened since a 22-year-old Reid sought crowd-funding in 2014 to record and self-release her debut album, Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs.
The following year, a chance meeting with Auckland music promoter Strange News, aka Matthew Crawley, led to Reid being signed by Australian label Spunk Records, which had previously picked up New Zealand folk artist Tiny Ruins (Holly Fullbrook). That opened doors for deals in Europe and the United States; the international reviews began to flow; Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs could be found on various albums-of-the-year lists.
It found favour in New Zealand, too. Nominated for a Tui award (best folk album) as well as the Taite Music Prize (previous winners include Lorde) last year, Listen to Formation offered a spare yet taut and powerful documentation of the ebbs and flows of love.
The follow-up to a modest 2011 EP (Letters I Wrote and Never Sent), Listen to Formation was an accumulation of years of material. In contrast, Reid’s latest was written over a much shorter time-frame.
"We had been wanting to make another album for a while," Reid explains.
"Preservation was recorded last March, that’s two years between albums.
"When I made Listen to Formation I didn’t even know if I wanted to do it, or could do it. I had a really good time and am really happy with the songs, but I think I was much more assured and confident this time."
Joined by long-time musical companions Sam Taylor (guitar), Joe McCallum (drums) and Richie Pickard (bass), Reid collaborated closely with producer Ben Edwards in his Sitting Room Studios in Lyttelton, where the band spent a couple of weeks recording, often doing their best work late at night.
"Ben just wanted to push beyond where we were comfortable ... There were a couple of things he wanted that took me a while to get into and vice versa. Obviously, some of the songs sound very big — it is quite an electric album — so I was playing electric guitar some of the time."
One such example is title track Preservation, on which a finger-picked electric guitar swirls, its tempo slowing down and speeding up, setting the scene for an album that is confident (there’s that word again) and powerful, yet also fragile and vulnerable.
"I’d just take a song into the studio and the band would let it happen. It’s just about arriving at some internal feeling. I never say, ‘I want you to play that or don’t do that’. But I will say if I love something. It just happens, with the help of Ben’s gentle guiding hand.
"Typically, I will write a song and not think about it too much. It’s either finished or it’s not; it’s either s*** or it’s truthful."
Among the highlights is Richard. The second single off the album, following Arrow & the Aim, it references her former partner. Hmmm ...
"It’s the first time I’ve done that and I don’t know if I’ll do it again," Reid explains, conceding there was some fallout from her choice of title.
"It was never intentional, but if I hadn’t called the song that ... it wouldn’t have been the same. It was my way of processing an event. Part of me loves that I’ve done it, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t get in a bit of trouble.
"It’s funny, eh? People are really interested in that song. I had an interview with a guy on radio the other day and the first thing he asked me was ‘who’s Richard?’. And I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.
"But the whole album is basically about him. The album is dedicated to him in a very peaceful and loving way. A lot of the album is about this relationship ending and all the deep self-discovery that goes on."
Often full of a swagger that’d make the staunchest rapper choke, album press releases are typically best ignored. Yet the words that accompany the preview of Reid’s new record are an exercise in brutal honesty: "Preservation is about the point I started to love myself again. It is about strength, observation and sobriety. It’s about when I could see the future again ... This record is about being OK with who I am in the world, and who I want to be. Learning to live with the fact I’m a person who operates differently to others ..."
Strength? Sobriety? Operating differently to others? These terms are recited back to Reid. In between sips of coffee, she barely changes a conversational gear.
"It’s a bit hard to nail it on the head because I haven’t really been in that zone of thinking about that kind of stuff, but everyone knows creative people are prone to being ... up and down.
"I’m wary of the term ‘mental health’, but I was starting to have that conversation with myself about those sorts of things. As a younger person I think I was, well, not quite ashamed of my feelings. Now I just know that a creative person experiences certain things. It was about me losing that stigma and learning to live with it," she says.
"But it is also about knowing that without that ability to feel both really great and really low, I probably couldn’t write songs. I really want to have these conversations, you know.
"It is also about learning to make lifestyle changes that put me in a better position, obviously, in the music community and in my life ... I don’t drink on any of the tours. I quit drinking about a year ago and found a massive difference in my performances.
"I’m obsessed with the idea of really being present. When we were in Europe last year I was aware people had paid to come and had a certain expectation, so I had to deliver. And if I was half-pissed because I’d drunk a bottle of wine ...
"I think I’m pretty self-aware. I think I have to be. I definitely don’t want to take anything for granted. Once you start doing that, it’s game over."
A decade has passed since Reid picked up the guitar at 14. She went on to win a Smokefreerockquest prize (for best female musician) as part of a Queen’s High School band. She was also a member of the Queen’s madrigal choir, which won the New Zealand Choral Federation (Otago) Millennium Trophy for secondary school choirs in 2009.
Back then, she wasn’t necessarily thinking about any career in music, although she did acknowledge in an Otago Daily Times article following that choral win that, "music is a very important thing in a person’s life ... I’m surrounded by it all the time. It wasn’t a choice for me. It just happened."
Now her craft’s better honed, her plans a little clearer: a current Europe tour; a worldwide album launch in early March; back to New Zealand for an extensive tour starting later that month; then Australia beckons.
What next?
"I really want to get to the United States," Reid says.
"That’s top of my to-do list. We are going to be back in Europe in August and September and will base another summer tour around those dates. That will definitely involve me and Sam, but we might work towards getting a third member on board.
"I do have that feeling that I probably should move overseas. But part of me doesn’t want to. Surely if I’m overseas six months of the year, that’s enough. Then I can come back and live here.
"At the moment I have no desire to move. But we’ll see."
The album
Nadia Reid’s new album, Preservation, will be released on March 3 via Spunk Records.
