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Fans of acclaimed alt-folk singer songwriter Nadia Reid should head to the Leigh Sawmill Café on Saturday, July 20, not least as it could be the last chance to see her perform in New Zealand for a while.
That’s because as soon as her High & Lonely tour of NZ and Australia is over, Nadia will be leaving her Dunedin home to try living and working in the UK for the foreseeable future. She says it makes sense on several levels.
“I’m half British – my mother is British – I work with a lot of people over there and my label is an English label (Basin Rock Records), so it sort of makes sense,” she says. “I just felt like having a little go over there. I don’t know for how long, it’s hard to know. I’m mentally preparing to be based there for the next few years. But I have a house in Dunedin, so there’ll be a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing.”
Nadia first attracted attention with rave reviews after the release of Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs in 2015, and had built a global following by the time her second record, Preservation, was released in 2017. She has recently completed her third album, as yet untitled, which was recorded in Richmond, Virginia, and should be out around February next year.
“It’s hard to be objective, but I feel like it’s a bit more considered, made with more instruments and more time,” she says.
Nadia’s voice has been described as breathtaking, ethereal and otherworldly, and her style as “lovelorn folk with dirt under its nails” that can produce gut-wrenchingly emotive and beautiful songs. Her Sawmill show will be a mix of new material and songs from her first two albums, backed by her band – Sam Taylor on guitar, Chris O’Connor on drums, Richie Pickard on bass and, for this tour, violinist Anita Clark (aka Motte).
She’s no stranger to Leigh, either on the Sawmill stage or in the audience, having supported bands and visited to watch others when she lived in Auckland.
“I love it up that way,” she says. “I’ve definitely done the drive up there and back a few times.”
Tickets cost $35 from banishedmusic.com/nadiareidjuly and the show starts at 8pm.
