Q&A - NANI

Our artist of the week this week is NANI. A fantastic singer-songwriter-artist from Edinburgh. In the last 12 months, NANI has been spending time refining her sound and expanding her live shows. Although this is her first release since her single Darling (2021), NANI has been incredibly busy this past year: a feature on BBC 6 Music’s Friday evening show, accompanying SAMA to a showcase at Liverpool Sound City, festivals and gigs all around Scotland (most recently Celtic Connections in January), as well as plenty of airplay across national radio stations such as BBC Radio Scotland - NANI has been growing her audience, and gaining momentum in the Scottish scene and beyond. Following the release of their stunning brand new single ‘Search Bar’ we caught up to talk inspirations, live & local music and the perfect meal.

Welcome Nani to our Artist Of The Week feature. Your new single ’Search Bar’ was released last week - a collaboration with Edinburgh based producer Sweet Philly. Tell us a bit about how that relationship came about

Philly and I went to university together actually! We both studied Sound Design in Edinburgh and at some point along the line of becoming friends we decided to see if we could make some music together. We booked one of the university’s studios and just messed around with some chords. The whole song sparked from a note on Philly’s phone that said, “you’re always in my search bar”. We left the idea hanging in the air for a bit and a few weeks after our initial session, I sat down with the material we had and the whole song just came together in a few minutes.

Touching on the modern day impact of social media and our often obsessive compulsions, Search Bar is a superbly written tale akin to the likes of Maggie Rogers & Mitski. Who/what has inspired your sound and your songwriting? 

Maggie Rogers & Mitski are certainly amongst the songwriters I look up to. I think some of the artists that have shaped my approach to songwriting and creating music the most are probably The Japanese House, Bon Iver, Beach House, HAIM and Oehl. 

And as for what inspires me, most of my songs spark from personal experiences. But equally also the realisation that none of these experiences are individual to me. They all centre around emotions that everyone experiences. I try to take those feelings and describe them in a way others can relate to. And I think specifically with “Search Bar”, this constant need to be online is something so many of us have found ourselves guilty of.

What are your thoughts on the Edinburgh music scene? Things you love and things you think could be improved

After initially coming to Edinburgh, it took me a wee while to connect with the scene, and just as I was finally starting to play live shows at the end of 2019, Covid hit soon after. But especially since the return of live music, I’ve felt like there’s a fantastic collective of artists in Edinburgh who are really supportive of one another, and I’ve made some great friends through playing music and actively engaging with the scene. There’s a lot of overlap between the Edinburgh and Glasgow scene also. And I’ve got a lot of love for the independent venues and the people who run them in both these cities (Shoutout to Sneaky Pete’s especially). From my perspective, something that could be improved a bit in the Scottish scene in general is inclusivity and opening up this mysterious inner circle of the industry to smaller artists.

You’ve got a few live dates coming up including Stag & Dagger on April 29th. Three words to describe a NANI live show are…

Queer, emotional rollercoaster.

 Your perfect lunch? 

Honestly I’m pretty easily pleased when it comes to food but give me a pizza in the meadows with a can of Tennents on a sunny summers day and I’m as happy as can be.

You can check out the brand new single ‘Search Bar’ by NANI below.