Praise for Party
“Everything is where it needs to be: brushed drums, masculine Edith Piaf eruptions, deft piano touches, a smidgen of sax, plucked guitar, not a rocky moment – it rolls along like those days with a lover when there’s no point leaving the boudoir.” – The Herald Sun ★★★★☆
“[Harding] is a songbird, whose warbling coos makes the painful sound pretty. Party – yes, there’s irony in the title – is a record for those who like their music bleak, bruised, beautiful; conversant in fragility, failure, self-destructiveness.” – Sydney Morning Herald ★★★★
“It’s a rare artistic achievement to evoke these heightened feelings, and capture with poetry and precision something of our interior lives… And like the best parties, it’s a completely transporting experience.” – STACK
“These songs are full of worried wonderings and torrid, erotic declarations – “My mouth is wet / Don’t you forget it” – sung in an extraordinarily dextrous and perhaps divisive voice that ranges from Josephine Foster’s warble to Nico’s sonorous tenor.” – The Guardian
Aldous Harding, the compelling artist from New Zealand, has revealed a new video for the single ‘Blend’.
Taken from her latest album, Party, the visuals for ‘Blend’ were created by Charlotte Evans, the New Zealand filmmaker also responsible for Harding’s previous videos for ‘Horizon’ and ‘Imagining My Man’.
Disquieting in its nature, and inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s legendary war film Apocalypse Now, Harding goes into further detail –
“The concept is based on that awful scene from ‘Apocalypse Now’ where the playmates pile out of the helicopter. The costume was handmade for me, it turned out great. It’s in the bin. I spent eight hours dancing on a Lazy Susan, it was easy really. Obviously I know what it is… The song itself was written in an AirBnB in Bristol the night before going into the studio.”
Harding’s second album Party was produced with the award-winning John Parish (PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse) in his hometown of Bristol, taking Harding away from her New Zealand base for an intensive two-week immersion in the studio. As well as a raft of musical contributions from Parish,Perfume Genius’s Mike Hadreas lends vocals to recent single ‘Imagining My Man’ and Party closer‘Swell Does The Skull’. Party has dazzled the critics, leading to a startling performance of ‘Horizon’ onLater… with Jools Holland (which can be viewed here).
Aldous Harding – ‘Blend’
Aldous Harding – ‘Horizon’
Aldous Harding – ‘Imagining My Man’
Aldous Harding – Party
1. Blend
2. Imagining My Man
3. Living The Classics
4. Party
5. I’m So Sorry
6. Horizon
7. What If Birds Aren’t Singing They’re Screaming
8. The World Is Looking For You
9. Swell Does The Skull
Aldous Harding – Party is out now
via 4AD / Remote Control Records.
