Nailah Hunter delves into 'Strange Delights'
NAILAH HUNTER
Shares New Single/Video “Strange Delights”
WATCH HERE
Debut LP Lovegaze
Out 12th January 2024 on Fat Possum
Debut UK headline show Hoxton Hall, London on 1st February 2024
LA-based harpist/multi-instrumentalist and composer Nailah Hunter shares “Strange Delights,” the 2nd single made available from Lovegaze, Hunter’s debut full-length due out January 12, 2024 on new label home Fat Possum. “Strange Delights” is a bewitching testament to the resiliency of the natural world, accompanied by a powerful conceptual video directed by Haoyan Of America.
According to Nailah Hunter: “‘Strange Delights’ started as an improv over a modular synth loop that my partner made. At the time, we were burning a bunch of incense in a dark room, which served as inspiration for the wandering vocal melody. Once I worked on it with producer Cicely Goulder, ‘Strange Delights’ took on a more golden quality that reminds me of a hazy and intoxicated feast in a peculiar, yet familiar wood.”
Regarding the video, director Haoyan Of America shares: “The idea for ‘Strange Delights’ was developed through conversations with Nailah and inspired by her interest in crocodilian ‘tapetum lucidum’ (Latin for “shining layer”), a biologic reflector system common in the eyes of vertebrates that give them enhanced night vision. The visual arc takes cues from the song's musical progression and highlights contrasting evolutionary ecologies.”
WATCH the video for “Strange Delights” Directed by Haoyan Of America HERE
Nailah Hunter has been recording mystical folk and ambient-inspired music since she shared her debut single “Apple, Maple, Willow” in 2019. Following that, she has released a series of singles and two EPs on Leaving Records: Spells and most recently, Quietude, before signing with Fat Possum.
As the daughter of a Belizean pastor, Nailah Hunter began her musical journey in the church where she played drums, guitar and sang in the choir. She continued on to study music at CalArts, where she studied vocal performance and was given her first harp lesson. Associating the instrument with fantasy, psychedelia, and dream worlds, Hunter became an immediate devotee, locking herself in a room for six hours a day to practice the instrument.
To make Lovegaze, Hunter decamped to a small coastal city along the English Channel where she began recording demos with a borrowed celtic harp. After being introduced to London-based producer Cicely Goulder, Hunter returned to England a year later to further develop the songs.
Lovegaze is an enthralling album that draws listeners into her enchanting cosmology. “While I was writing Lovegaze, I was thinking about humanity’s propensity to destroy the things we love,” Hunter says. “I was thinking about ancient ruins and structures that once provided shelter but no longer do. There’s beauty to be found in ruins, too.”
The whole album was written during a time of both global and personal strife for Hunter, and while Lovegaze captures some of that sense of distress, it’s also a willful reminder of the fortitude and beauty of Earth’s natural processes. As Hunter says: “Nature remains; we’re the passing thing.”
Pre-Order Lovegaze out January 12, 2024 on Fat Possum Records HERE
