NAARI Works With Fink On Eponymous Debut Album
4 October 2022
Neeraja aka NAARI just released her namesake debut album, seeing prominent British artist Fink on production duties.
In previous years, we had seen the New Delhi-born Berlin-based artist pack a raw rough-edged charm, vocally dancing at the strained limits of her range on releases like 'everythingiseverything' and her post-punk group 'La Laguna'. In contrast, the NAARI on the new album is more at ease and gentle in delivery as the production whittles down the layers to traditional instrumentation of drums, bass, guitars, piano and sometimes strings.
The simplicity puts the focus on NAARI's songwriting and the vocals' ability to convey its themes. While the songwriting combines the laidback electrified arrangements with introspective modern folk-style songwriting, the vocals draw from R&B with an added inflexion of Neeraja's roots, which she also gives fuller space to on the intermittent 'Invocation'. The 9-track release plays its hand cleverly, sticking to its defining mood for the first half before moving gradually to edgier realms from 'There's No Magic', all the way to the hint of noir on 'Orindary World' before coming full circle on 'Ego'.
Check out the album below and follow NAARI for more.
Image by Eline Duijsens