Designer
In some ways, Aldous Harding’s third album, *Designer*, feels lighter than her first two—particularly 2017’s stunning, stripped-back, despairing *Party*. “I felt freed up,” Harding (whose real name is Hannah) tells Apple Music. “I could feel a loosening of tension, a different way of expressing my thought processes. There was a joyful loosening in an unapologetic way. I didn’t try to fight that.” Where *Party* kept the New Zealand singer-songwriter\'s voice almost constantly exposed and bare, here there’s more going on: a greater variety of instruments (especially percussion), bigger rhythms, additional vocals that add harmonies and echoes to her chameleonic voice, which flips between breathy baritone and wispy falsetto. “I wanted to show that there are lots of ways to work with space, lots of ways you can be serious,” she says. “You don’t have to be serious to be serious. I’m not a role model, that’s just how I felt. It’s a light, unapologetic approach based on what I have and what I know and what I think I know.” Harding attributes this broader musical palette to the many places and settings in which the album was written, including on tour. “It’s an incredibly diverse record, but it somehow feels part of the same brand,” she says. “They were all written at very different times and in very different surroundings, but maybe that’s what makes it feel complete.” The bare, devastating “Heaven Is Empty” came together on a long train ride and “The Barrel” on a bike ride, while intimate album closer “Pilot” took all of ten minutes to compose. “It was stream of consciousness, and I don’t usually write like that,” she says. “Once I’d written it all down, I think I made one or two changes to the last verse, but other than that, I did not edit that stream of consciousness at all.” The piano line that anchors “Damn” is rudimentary, for good reason: “I’m terrible at piano,” she says. “But it was an experiment, too. I’m aware that it’s simple and long, and when you stretch out simple it can be boring. It may be one of the songs people skip over, but that’s what I wanted to do.” The track is, as she says, a “very honest self-portrait about the woman who, I expect, can be quite difficult to love at times. But there’s a lot of humor in it—to me, anyway.”
Aldous Harding’s third album, Designer is released on 26th April and finds the New Zealander hitting her creative stride. After the sleeper success of Party (internationally lauded and crowned Rough Trade Shop’s Album of 2017), Harding came off a 200-date tour last summer and went straight into the studio with a collection of songs written on the road. Reuniting with John Parish, producer of Party, Harding spent 15 days recording and 10 days mixing at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth and Bristol’s J&J Studio and Playpen. From the bold strokes of opening track ‘Fixture Picture’, there is an overriding sense of an artist confident in their work, with contributions from Huw Evans (H. Hawkline), Stephen Black (Sweet Baboo), drummer Gwion Llewelyn and violinist Clare Mactaggart broadening and complimenting Harding’s rich and timeless songwriting.
The third album from the impressionistic New Zealand singer-songwriter eludes easy classification, which makes her delicately built and beautifully rendered songs all the more alluring.
The New Zealander continues to expand upon her remarkable sound on third LP
The NME review of Aldous Harding's third album, 'Designer', released on 4AD and produced by PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish.
On her third LP, the New Zealand singer pivots artfully from folk eccentric to pop eccentric.
Aldous Harding sounds delightfully free on her new album ‘Designer’, while The Cranberries find closure on their final record. Soak’s second album shows a bolder artist, but Catfish offer more of the same on their predictable third outing
The New Zealand singer/songwriter's third studio effort, and her second time working with producer and frequent PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish, Designer eschews the post-last call darkness of 2017's Party for something a bit sunnier, though no less peculiar.
Aldous Harding's abstract songwriting left listeners of her past two records confused yet enchanted, and the experience remains for her thir...
You can almost imagine Aldous Harding's face contorting into paralytic awe or into an expression of statuesque severity when you hear her move guilelessly through her register.
There’s this quiet intensity to Aldous Harding’s music that is impossible to shake. Each song is imbued with an incredibly rich sense of
'Designer' by Aldous Harding, album review by Mike Olinger. The New Zealand Singer/songwriter's full-length comes out on May 3rd via 4AD
Her lyrics are inscrutable and her vocal and visual stylings eccentric, but Harding’s third album is a thing of beauty<br>