Aldous Harding Joins Forces With John Parish For Latest Album

Young New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding has carved herself a niche in recent years with her distinctive brand of hypnotic folk, quietly intense music delivered with a restrained fervour that suits the austere soundscapes perfectly.

Her new album Party is awash with beautifully minimalist arrangements — stark vistas where Harding's spectral vocal have free rein to peak and trough as they please — with the album recorded in the UK in tandem with esteemed producer John Parish, the pair bunkering down for ten days in his Bristol studio.

"Most of the songs on Party are love songs, but I don't know that I was trying to make a lyrical thread." 

While Parish is undoubtedly best known for his work with PJ Harvey — to whom Harding is oft compared — her inspiration to travel so far in search of aural perfection actually came from closer to home. "I just loved Laura Jean's record that she did with him so much, and that was kind of the record that made me decide that I would approach him," Harding recalls of the Melbourne folk singer's eponymous 2014 long-player. "I think I made a pretty good choice and now I've got a friend for life as well, so that's nice. And a record."

And while Harding admits that she and Parish got on very well in the studio, there wasn't much time for relaxation given that the songs were still coming thick and fast. "For some of the songs we had arrangements sorted [before the sessions], but I actually wrote Imagining My Man, Living The Classics and Blend while we were recording," she tells. "I think I wrote them in about an hour each or a couple of hours each. My memory of that time is pretty foggy. It was eight months ago and I've done a lot since then, but I remember it being very present and very tiring — very, very tiring — just because it's such a small place and it's just non-stop focus. It has to be. It's very much like work, but a nice kind of work."

And while Harding received plenty of traction for her darker 2014 self-titled debut, she didn't let external expectation weigh her down on Party.

"I put pressure on myself to make a good record because I was doing it with John Parish and a lot of people worked hard so that I could make it, including myself, so there was pressure to have something that I felt was credible and that I felt John was proud of," she reflects. "I just wanted to make a record that I thought was good, was solid.

"Most of the songs on Party are love songs, but I don't know that I was trying to make a lyrical thread, it was just one song at a time. They're obviously not as tortured [as songs on the debut album] — I feel a lot freer and a lot more comfortable now, but that's just because I'm getting older and I'm getting over it. I was just trying to be a bit braver this time around I guess."