Description
Storytelling lies at the very heart of Nishla Smith's music making, and since the release of her critically lauded Whirlwind debut, Friends with Monsters, the evolving circumstances of her own life have provided the materials for the stories that lie at the heart of this new collection. it's getting late, you'd better go home was written during a period of emotional turmoil, as Nishla confronted a series of crossroads in her life, not least whether to stay in her adopted UK home or return to her native Australia. From these deeply personal concerns, the stories expand outwards to address universal themes of belonging and of absence, of closeness and separation, of yearning ambition and the simple joys of the quotidian. These extra resonances inspired Nishla to expand her sonic palette, deepening the timbral possibilities with layers of vocals and subtle electronica, and surrounding herself with a hand-picked group of some of the UK's most empathetic and adventurous musicians. The songs are expanded and supported by Tom Harris' subtle, sensitive piano, embellished by the saxophones of Xhosa Cole and Harben Kay and the trumpets of Aaron Wood and Charlotte Keeffe and grounded by the superlative rhythm team of Misha Mullov-Abbado and drummers Sarah Heneghan & Kai Chareunsy. At the centre of everything is Nishla's remarkable voice, always poised and in control, but equally capable of revealing intimacy and powerful emotional charge.
Nishla's music is adventurous and deeply personal, "I wanted to frighten myself and I wanted the songs to expose that fear," but always prioritises melody and accessibility and an emotional directness that reaches out to the listener. 'jewel thief' addresses themes of time and change with a gospel-inflected poignant warmth, and ambient sound effects that pull us directly into Nishla's own life. On 'bluebird', Elly and Lucy Hanson's backing vocals add a paean to the beauty and fragility of youth, perfectly captured by Kay's flute. By contrast 'the beast' employs a vaudevillian bluesy swagger to deliver a mordant account of the critical inner voice, adding dramatic sound effects to pull us right into the story. Relief comes in the form of 'imagination' with its feather-light bossa beat and layers of vocals filling out a rich Bacharach-style harmony. For 'hold on to me' Nishla explores her love of 70s troubadours like Elton John and Billy Joel and reveals the full power of her voice to deliver the final climatic chorus. The insouciant shuffle backbeat of 'time' contrasts with the torch-song intensity of 'the lark' spiced with subtle dissonances from Harris' piano. "Tom and I have such a deep musical relationship, there's no-one else's voice I could have imagined being threaded though the music so intimately." The ticking of clocks underscores the intense intimacy of 'perfect', and clocks also feature in the yearning 'same stars' which evokes the pain of separation and builds into a gigantic chorus "I wanted it to sound like we were lifting off into space." The sound effects, poised ambience and stunning vocal of 'you and i' place us with Nishla in a night-time garden under gentle rain, while the closing title track is a simple voice-note recording of Nishla at her piano that feels like a direct message to the listener.
Working closely with producer Chris Hyson, Nishla has created an immersive sound-world that showcases but never distracts from the strength of the compositions and the hypnotic charisma of her voice. There's a real sense of place that unifies these tales of yearning and dislocation. "The spiritual location for the whole album is a saloon at three o' clock in the morning, just me and the musicians and a handful of listeners."
