Why Nadia Reid shines a light on the 'dark night of the soul'

Nadia Reid is about to release her third album Out of My Province. Photyo: Alex Lovell-Smith

Nadia Reid picks up her small pot of English breakfast tea, carefully pours it into her cup and says, "A lot of people don't want to know about the dark night of the soul."

Then she picks up her teaspoon, gives her tea a stir and gently says, "They don't talk about the devastating things that happen to people, the devastating loss or devastating pain that people have to endure."

She takes a sip, returns her cup carefully to the saucer and says, "I like to go right up to the tricky subjects that people find really hard to talk about and get really close to them. I'm not afraid to get involved with it and sing about it or talk about it. I think music acts as a balm to help people feel."

It's a vivid image and an apt description of her own music. Reid's been soothing people's feels with her music for years, holding their hands and walking them up to the line where their fears, failings or heartbreak reside and then standing by and supporting them.

"I had this experience in the UK last year where I played a show and these dudes were there who looked like the UK versions of Westies. I was like, 'Why are you in this church, in this tiny town waiting patiently to hear a New Zealand folk singer?' It was weird," she says. As she talks I begin to fear her tale's about to take a dark twist.

"Afterwards, one of them came up to me and said, 'I just want to let you know that my wife died a year ago and Preservation completely helped me through this grieving process,' and at that moment I was so moved. That's the highest privilege to be that to someone. And that's the thing, even the most happy-go-lucky person is still going to endure things in life that you utterly cannot fathom why it's happened. It's too much to bear."

Following the global acclaim for her second album, Preservation, Reid has collected many stories like this from around the world, of people reaching out to tell her what her music means to them. Learning of the role her music was playing in people's lives gave her a "sense of responsibility" she took into the recording of her new record, Out of My Province.

And while the album's been ready for a year now, the business of art delayed its release. A situation Reid describes as being "psychologically hard".

"It's too long," she says. "I went through long periods of not listening to it, trying not to even think about it. Which was hard. But, the songs still feel relevant. It's a good representation of where I want to head. Where I want to be. I'm going to feel a great sigh of relief to release it and be able to move on."

The songs on the album are, she says, relatively autobiographical while also deliberately hazy and left with enough space for listeners to imprint their own story and meanings on to them.

"I get a lot from dreams and visions," she says when asked of her inspiration. "Not in a hippy-dippy sense but it's a form of capturing creativity. I keep those lines really blurry. If it was completely autobiographical and I was completely open it would be too much," she laughs. "I wouldn't like people to listen to the album and feel that it was the exact gospel of what I felt and what happened. Because some of it is pretty dark."

Why does she think she's drawn to these heavy topics that reside firmly on the darker side of life?

"I've always been melancholic. Then also the opposite as well. I don't want to say the obvious thing, which would be that I have dealt with depression for a long time, and that's probably the truth of it, but I think about all my friends in their late 20s and early 30s and so many are depressed in some way or are stressed. You've got to really consciously find the joy in life.

"Now, certainly, I'm not a negative person," she smiles, "I'm not a sad bitter woman, which maybe the first two records were a little bit. But I feel it's important to be real. I don't like the idea of pretending that… let's be real about things."

Looking back now, how does she view the person who made Preservation and her debut album, 2015's Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs?

"With the first album, I see someone who was really lost but was really driven to make a record. I was pretty shy and didn't quite believe I was good enough. I didn't believe that I was worthy really. I felt like people were doing me a favour," she answers candidly. "By the second record, I felt a little more confident but still unsure. Still riding in the back seat and feeling like other people's opinions were more valid. I didn't trust myself as much as I do now. I know that I have a good gut feeling and a good sense of what should be and what shouldn't. It comes with experience. Of playing a lot and with growing as a person."

"It's just time," she continues. "If you spend time doing something over and over, generally you should be getting better. If you're not…"

She trails off so I jump in and say, you should keep going, right?

"Or don't," she says, flatly.

Oh, right, I say.

"As a musician or as an artist you have to be open and aware of the feedback that the world gives you. I've always been really aware, not of people's feedback, but of, 'Are things feeling like I'm on the right track? Is this the right amount of difficult?'" she explains, casually destroying the theory of if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

"Some people slog it out to be artists and it gives me nightmares thinking about that. I never could have done that. I was always ready to just give it up."

With her third album about to be released, a new multi-album deal with a fully supportive record label, fans all around the world and an international tour mere week's away, thank goodness she didn't, I joke.

"I didn't because I couldn't," she replies earnestly. "It kept working and kept providing a way of living and a way of being. I couldn't stop. I wouldn't have anything else to do."

Then she finishes her tea and smiles, "Well, maybe a few things but I'd be really lost."

LOWDOWN
Who: Singer-songwriter Nadia Reid
What: New album Out of My Province and Auckland shows.
When: The record is out tomorrow and she plays four shows at Hillsborough's TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre this weekend.

Nadia Reid on...

… the album's title Out of My Province
It's taken from a phrase that Janet Frame, the author, said in an interview where she responded to the question; 'how do you feel about being one of the greatest living NZ authors?'. She dismisses it and says, 'that doesn't reach me, it's out of my province'. I thought it fitted and tied in with the theme of extended travel, touring, coming into being a musician and an artist and getting out of comfort zones. But I just liked the phrase and liked the way it sounded.

… her Plan B
After my second album Preservation came out I was still trying to study in Dunedin. I had my backup plan of midwifery. Until I got the international press that I did for that record, until that happened New Zealand didn't really start to get onboard, and I was like, 'yeah you know, I do music on the side. I'm gonna do my degree, do midwifery'. I was ready for it all to fall to shit.

… what worries her
The pressures of just surviving. We've lost really important skills. That true feeling of connecting people. A lot of it's the internet, our phones and devices. All these human needs like having your own home, having a community in which you feel connected to on a deep level, or feeling that you have a true sense of purpose or a safe fulfilling relationship. It's a funny time to have grown up in this time when anything is possible but also we're becoming more and more isolated. More depressed maybe? I do worry about the internet and phones. I feel that it kills creativity big time. It's easier to pick up your phone instead of a book.

… writing songs
People have been saying this forever - artists, writers, poets - that some feel like it's a channeling. That it's not of them. Not in a religious way but whatever you want to call it, the muse, creative energy, some people would call it God, some would call it a higher self or the soul. It's an unconscious channeling. I don't think about anyone else or how it's gonna sound or be received. I don't think about anything.