Album | Nadia Reid – Out of My Province

Travel can bring change, it can bring personal growth, but it can also help you realise who you really are. For her third album, with the appropriate name Out Of My Province, Reid packed her passport and set off around the world on a journey of personal discovery. A record primarily written while on tour opens with ‘All of My Love’, a song that travels from her native Aotearoa to London, and just keeps on moving. Stand-out track ‘Oh Canada’ sounds bright and breezy but speaks of the loneliness and distance that can be felt out on the road – “I am lonely for you in Norway/I am lonely for you in Spain” sings Reid, having already admitted “All of the travel that I have done/I don’t know what I am looking for”.

Musically speaking, the most significant journey Reid made came when she got on a plane to Richmond, Virginia, to work at Spacebomb Studios. With Matthew E. White part of the production team and Trey Pollard working on arrangements, Reid’s sound gets the full Spacebomb workover – all lush flourishes which lend the entire record a character distinctive within Reid’s growing back catalogue. But with regular collaborator Sam Taylor and his shimmering guitars also along for the ride, this is not a radical departure but more of a progression. It is the sound of an artist, out on the road, learning more about herself every day.