A Song For Friday: Nadia Reid

NZ to the UK and a bold return for the singer-songwriter

I caught on to Nadia Reid with her second album, Preservation, which landed in my Top 25 for 2017. As I noted then:

Nadia Reid - Preservation This New Zealand singer-songwriter might as well have called her gorgeous sophomore effort “Self-Preservation,” as she navigates life after a breakup with a spine steeled by nothing but her gift for indelible melodies and lyrics full of poetic leaps. The production is well-nigh perfect, pushing her folky songs into the indie-rock mystic. But it’s her songs and remarkable voice that are the stars here, as she proved at the start of her NYC debut show at Park Church Co-Op earlier this month. The way she walked up on stage without a word and, accompanied only by her guitar, just poured out her voice flawlessly was jaw-dropping. A house of worship instantly became an entirely appropriate place to work her magic. Preservation is a treasure you need in your collection.

I felt almost the same about album three, 2020’s Out Of My Province, which she recorded at Matthew E. White’s Spacebomb studio, her first time making an album outside her native New Zealand. It proved “to be a heavenly collaboration, with their smart yet soulful horns and strings limning Reid's glorious songs with a warm glow. She may be far from her province but she sounds right at home.”

Now, after some time for life to happen - the pandemic, a move to the UK, the birth of two daughters, etc. - Reid has announced her fourth album and launched the first single into the world on Chrysalis Records. That’s an apropos label name for an artist in the mode of “forever becoming” as Lou Reed put it.

Reid acknowledges the passing of time in the bemused ending to a recent post on her Substack, Almost Here, Mostly Now:

Five years since OOMP came out. How does that both feel like yesterday and a million years ago? The hands of time I will never understand.

So yeah, dusting off the cobwebs. Getting back on the horse. Whatever you want to call it. I’ll see you there.

And the song, Changed Unchained, is a doozy, a dramatic, propulsive rocker most closely related to The Way It Goes from Preservation but blown up to IMAX proportions.

Unlike other artists who decide to go big after going home, Reid has nothing to prove and shows remarkable restraint in her vocals on the song. She never breaks a sweat, but her glorious instrument is always in charge as it soars over the powerful instrumentation. Produced by Tom Healy, who has also worked on extraordinary albums by Tiny Ruins among many others, and mixed by D. James Goodwin (Cassandra Jenkins, et al), the song features atmospheric lead guitar from Sam Taylor, pulsing bass from Richie Pickard, and pounding drums from Joe McCallum. It should be noted that All three have been with Reid since her 2014 debut, Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs. They certainly seem like a dream team of musicians - listen for yourself!

The lyrics are enigmatic, with an aphoristic quality that keeps exact meaning tantalizingly out of reach:

That pain is a faint memory I’m making
It’s ours not only for the taking

The song is full of questions, too, as in the refrain:

Changed by her melody or were you chained by the memory
Who’s to know?

The lack of easy answers and the dark trajectory of the music make it an easy song to play on repeat. Take it from one who knows.

From the archive:
Best Of 2017 (So Far)

Note: the graphic above is based on a photo by Marieke Macklon