Nadine Khouri, Anglo-Lebanese artist whose work has been highly praised by the international press, is preparing to present her latest album, Another Life, at Misty Fest.
Anglo-Lebanese artist Nadine Khouri met John Parish (PJ Harvey, Eels, Sparklehorse…) about 10 years ago, at which time the British producer challenged her to sing on “Baby’s Coming” (track from 2013’s “Screenplay”) before recording and producing her debut album “The Salted Air “* (2017), a work that has since garnered a just cult following.
The recording of their second full-length, “Another Life”, also produced by John Parish), took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and was naturally marked by the emotional fallout caused by the two powerful explosions in the port of Beirut in early August 2020. “The pandemic set in just as rehearsals were about to start, when we wanted a quick recording of these new songs. Suddenly, the world froze, nothing could go on as planned,” Nadine recalls.
Inside the album cover, a photograph taken by Steve Gullick reveals, behind Nadine Khouri, the expanse of a sun-bleached Mediterranean city, Marseille, where the artist currently resides. A city of thousands of lives, thousands of memories and thousands of stories, a theatre where Nadine’s journey resonates, the joy, the sadness, the regret, the exile, the challenge or the desire – marks that feed her music. “The songs often appear to me as images from films that I try to externalise,” she explains. “Trapped between four walls, this period of isolation has led me to look at my past, to remember close people who have disappeared, past moments that are now far from me. I wrote so as not to forget, not to let it disappear.”
With the restrictions lifted, Nadine Khouri and John Parish found themselves in the studio to finally record the album as originally planned, with the help of several renowned musicians. Out of this period of uncertainty emerge compositions of captivating beauty. John Parish’s production gives a majestic breath to these impressionistic songs, and to Nadine Khouri’s voice. Live, this singular presence and distinct artistic quality become even more evident, as has been highlighted in laudatory reviews from leading publications such as Mojo or Uncut.
“Meditative, spectral dreamscapes…
extraordinary voice: a fragile, sensuous instrument”
MOJO ★★★★
“Perfumed traces of Galaxie 500, Mazzy Star and Cocteau Twins…
a wonderfully spectral incantation”
UNCUT