NIKI: Written In The Stars

‘Buzz’ is full of new experiences and feelings, dealing with the dissolution of a meaningful relationship and wrangling with other unexpected life curveballs. It’s often level-headed and strong despite the whirlwind of emotions contained within, which makes sense given how the record began. “It started with me being really honest about my experiences on tour and how I felt like I had to be stronger than I wanted to be,” she begins - pausing to note that the latter half of her sentence is a lyric from Maya Hawke’s ‘Over’. “I wrote ‘Strong Girl’ and it evolved from there. I feel like the whole record is about an identity crisis and just being lost in your twenties and accepting that life is just a constant state of uncertainty.”

The album contains another critical lesson NIKI learned through making the record - “and therapy!” she caveats, with a laugh: “Being comfortable is not very conducive to growing. When you’re uncomfortable, that’s when you have to learn new skills and new ways to cope.” For her, ‘Buzz’ reflects a feeling that pushes you out of the cosy warmth of your comfort zone and into “uncharted territory”, where you’re forced to figure things out in order to move on.

The latter half of the album in particular, she shares, “is about accepting growth as it comes and that you don’t have all the answers”. That manifests in songs like ‘Blue Moon’ and ‘Paths’, tracks that illustrate their creator’s newfound wisdom that a lot of life is just making it up as you go along. “There are no right decisions,” she says, “there are just the decisions that you make, and then you have to bear the consequences.”

There’s an element of letting the universe take the wheel in these songs, too, in which NIKI charts the collapse of her relationship and envisions a future where she and her ex are reunited, accepting their break-up as just another chapter in a story that is far from finished. “I think I do believe in fate a little bit,” she muses. “My mum was very religious, so maybe she instilled that in me. But I definitely find, personally, that believing things happen for a reason helps me get through life rather than chalking things up to coincidence or randomness. I like to think things happen for a purpose.”

It checks out, then, as someone not averse to the idea that our lives are written in the stars, that NIKI also has a keen interest in astrology. “Unfortunately,” she sighs. “I wish I didn’t! I feel like it’s cooler and more mysterious not to be.” In Q&A sessions with fans on her Instagram story over the last few months, she’s occasionally assigned star signs or chart placements to the songs on ‘Buzz’. “I’ve referred to it to my closest friends as my Aries moon album,” she – an Aquarius sun and Aries moon and rising – says of the record as a whole. “It’s just got Aries energy to me. It’s a go-getter and about forward motion and just grabbing life by the throat in a really fiery way.”

On ‘Buzz’, NIKI didn’t just look to the stars above us for guidance, however - she also turned to some of those lining her record collection, too. The album pulls influence from a wide cast of great female artists, from modern wonders like the aforementioned Hawke and Madison Cunningham, to tried-and-true classics like Carly Simon, Stevie Nicks, Liz Phair, Lucinda Williams and Joni Mitchell. “Joni specifically is my songwriting North Star – I really don’t think that anyone is a better writer than her or a better artist,” NIKI says, voice filled with awe.

One key thing she picked up from Mitchell and Williams, especially, was their knack for saying things straight and keeping things simple. “Sometimes, less is truly more,” NIKI reasons. “Sonically, I think something about the 2000s felt really on the nose and just ‘it is what it is’ – raging guitars and real drums. I tried to lean into that notion.”

That principle felt more necessary, too, given the way in which the record was written. Much of ‘Buzz’ was born on the road, its lyrics pouring out of her as she travelled the world on planes, trains and automobiles. “Being on the go, you have so much extra stuff to think about, like flights and time zones,” she says. “You’re constantly moving. So what came out was just the most important parts – the meat and potatoes, no fluff, no frills.”

The physical experience of being in so many different places also informed parts of the album. London played a role in that inspiration process – but perhaps not in the way you might think. “Public transport!” NIKI exclaims, laughing at the mundanity of her answer. “The efficiency of it. I used to notoriously hate walking; that’s mostly why I didn’t end up moving to New York, because I grew up in Jakarta, and we drove everywhere.” Having studied in Nashville and now living in LA, the American part of her life hasn’t called for much walking or relying on buses, either. “But in London, I walked everywhere for the first time, and then I went on the tube and was like, ‘I understand, I’m enlightened’.”

You can hear that energy in ‘Buzz’’s first single, the flirty strut of ‘Too Much Of A Good Thing’. “It literally injected a pep in my step,” she enthuses. “There’s something about the hustle and bustle of a busy city that you miss when you’re not walking around it. It felt really energising, in a weird way.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the golden beaches of Australia fuelled the crisp atmospherics of ‘Tsunami’. “Just looking at it felt like Tumblr in real life,” NIKI recalls. “I was like, ‘This [scene] has to be a song’. ‘Tsunami’ was really interesting because it felt like this tidal wave of joy and excitement, but I felt like I had to be hush-hush about it.” The tension made the track what it is – an elegant cut that softly erupts in a buzzing breaker of a chorus but keeps things restrained and muted around it.

At other times, the actual experience of being on the road became the track’s main driver. Before embarking on the ‘Nicole’ world tour - NIKI’s first headline run - she had started working on the rhythmic mesmerism of ‘Magnets’ with producer and previous collaborator Ethan Gruska (Phoebe Bridgers, Fiona Apple). “We couldn’t finish it, but when I went on tour, I got the inspiration [to complete it],” she explains. That track – what she calls her “most artsy song” – is one of the highlights of the whole record, turning the tables on what you’d expect from it. “My mixing engineer said the funniest thing: ‘The chorus is a reverse chorus, it’s not a real chorus’,” NIKI notes. “It’s true! The verses are a little bit more bouncy, and the chorus just feels so lush and vast.”

While, lyrically, NIKI’s third tackles the idea of moving forward, ‘Buzz’ also sees the artist musically stretching outside of her comfort zone. As well as Gruska, she worked with Tyler Chester (Madison Cunningham, Sara Bareilles) on the record, with whom she tried a new approach to things. “I walked in, sat down with my guitar, and played him ‘Strong Girl’. After a couple of rounds, it was like, ‘Alright, press record’,” she says. “We just played it live in the room. I’ve never made music that way, and it was really invigorating – it really shone a huge spotlight on how good you are, so I felt a little nervous and vulnerable, but it was really fun.”

There’s growth, too, in the very fact that she opened up her creative circle to new collaborators. When NIKI was younger, she was more focused on getting things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, keeping her sessions small and intimate lest too many opinions slow her down. Now, she’s learning the value of not doing everything alone. “There’s a proverb: If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, walk with people you love,” she notes. “It was Tyler’s idea to have an instrumental break in the middle of ‘Strong Girl’, which I would never have thought to do. Now, it’s my favourite part. Sometimes, if you let other people in, you get a better thing.”

The evolution of NIKI will soon be evident not just on record but on stage, too. In September, she’ll get back on the road for a sprawling world tour that will take her to some of the world’s most iconic venues, Wembley Arena and LA’s Greek Theatre among them. Where the ‘Nicole’ tour was rooted in pop spectacle and the nuts and bolts that come with that – metronomes and meticulously-planned transitions to keep things on track – this time, she’s taking inspiration from a more relaxed brand of performance.

“I’ve been to a lot of house shows in LA lately; a lot of my musician friends will do shows in their backyards with very simple setups and no track,” she explains. “There’s something really magical about that. It’s very loosey-goosey, and you can tell people are doing this because they love the music. That’s the energy I’m trying to bring on this tour so that it feels a little bit less manicured and a little bit more true.”

This notion of honesty and transparency is also reflected in where NIKI wants to take her artistry from here. “It’s harder to be you than to try to be someone else, but I just want to keep making songs that resonate with me personally,” she says. Three albums in and finding herself more fully with each one, she’s making a commitment to putting her creative desires first and representing herself fully: whoever she becomes and whatever she may experience from now on. “A musician friend of mine told me, ‘At the end of the day, you’re not a jukebox; you’re an artist, so make your art’. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

‘Buzz’ is out 9th August via 88rising.

Tags: Features, In Deep, Interviews, NIKI