Released: June 21
Channeling her experiences both personally and professionally into her most ambitious album to date, Kate Nash delivers a career-defining body of work with ‘9 Sad Symphonies’.
Marking her debut on iconic US label Kill Rock Stars, the collection sees the Foundations singer ditch her classic, guitar-driven sound in favour of a lush, string-laden soundscape that underpins an exploration of her experiences over the past five years, working in the realms of musical theatre and navigating her mental health through a global pandemic.
“It needed to be cinematic and dreamy,” she says of the 10-song set, of which the title nods towards passing achievable goals when creativity crumbles. “I do things based on what I’m feeling at the time, and what I’m inspired by.”
For the singer-songwriter that meant tearing ideas from her personal journals, with opening song Million Of Heartbeats finding herself confronting the //‘numbness inside of me’// and the uncertainty of the Covid crisis, juxtaposing her distinctive, semi-spoken vocals with a sweeping instrumentation that proves irresistible.
Across the collection, she touches on various subject matters, including depression and mental health (Misery), isolation and loneliness (Abandoned) and the societal pressures we all face in the modern age (My Bile).
Her most cohesive work to date, ‘9 Sad Symphonies’ isn’t a concept record but the effect is similar; in digging so deep, Nash becomes the central character of the narrative, which appears fully-formed, with the immaculate production (courtesy of frequent collaborator, Grammy-winning Danish producer Frederik Thaae) enhancing the personality that radiates through her delivery.
It also offers an insight into her perspective, with Space Odyssey 2001 exploring a return to mundane life in London while referencing the 1968 movie of the same name that touches upon themes such as human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, all of which influence our everyday experiences in 2024.
Appearing towards the end of the set, Ray is a rare guitar moment that bridges the Nash of old and new, seeing her reemerge from the darkness with a fresh mindset and a reaffirmed appreciation for life and creativity.
Over the past years, pandemic albums haven’t been hard to come by, but ‘9 Sad Symphonies’ is different altogether; it’s a poignant exploration of the human condition, rooted in lived experience, and a project that reasserts Nash’s position as one of Britain’s greatest singer-songwriters of the 21st Century.
