Rahill

Rahill Jamalifard, who helped launch the Brooklyn garage rock outfit Habibi, pursues a separate path of gently psychedelic solo pop. Her debut project under the name Rahill alone took the form of Sun Songs, a four-song covers EP issued in 2022. The following year brought her first proper album, Flowers at Your Feet, a collection that weaves trip-hop and indie pop textures around reflections on her family’s past.

An Iranian-American multi-hyphenate born in Michigan, she works as a singer, songwriter, DJ, and visual artist whose drawings and paintings have appeared in galleries worldwide and whose practice has extended to collaborations with several prominent fashion houses. Alongside Detroit expatriate Lenaya Lynch she formed Habibi in 2011; the Brooklyn ensemble fused garage rock, punk, and girl-group elements, releasing its well-received self-titled debut album in 2014. Rahill also assembled the group Roya, which included Hamish Kilgour from the New Zealand legends the Clean, and their self-titled record arrived in 2017. Habibi returned with its second full-length, Anywhere But Here, in 2020.

Now based upstate New York, Rahill turned toward a softer, more nostalgic sound rooted in folk, trip-hop, and psychedelic pop. Big Dada released her initial solo outing, the 2022 EP Sun Songs, which revisited material by Shuggie Otis, Love, Yoko Ono, and Kim Jung Mi. Flowers at Your Feet followed in 2023; assembled from field recordings and family-archival home tapes, the album was produced by Alex Epton, formerly known as XXXchange, and features a guest turn by Beck on the single “Fables.”