Nadia Reid

Nadia Reid, the New Zealand songwriter recognized for her contemplative and precisely shaped songs that draw on folk traditions, first surfaced in 2015 through the acclaimed Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs. Recognition on a wider scale arrived with her second album, the award-winning Preservation of 2017, which drew praise both domestically and overseas. She refined her assured mix of layered pop and folk-rock tinged with country elements on the richly detailed Out of My Province, released in 2020.

Born in 1991, Reid was raised in Port Chalmers, a suburb of Dunedin on the South Island. She took up the guitar at age 14, yet a life in music seemed unlikely; after leaving school in 2009 she worked as a nanny and waitress. At 17 she issued her first EP, Letters I Wrote But Never Sent, in 2011. Six years of development preceded her debut full-length, which she self-released as Listen to Formation, Look for the Signs in 2014. Early the following year Spunk Records licensed it for Australia, Scissortail Records issued it in the United States, and Melodic Records brought it out across the European Union. The new-folk set, dwelling on love and loss, earned strong critical notices and led Reid to suspend work on her B.A. in English. Preservation followed 18 months later in 2017, once more produced by Ben Edwards with longtime guitarist Sam Taylor. Although the album retained the folk inflections of her debut, it displayed greater maturity through added layers of complexity and an expanded instrumental range. Out of My Province, issued in 2020, offered another evocative sequence of graceful melodies and perceptive lyrics.