Nina Nesbitt today releases her eagerly anticipated new album ‘Älskar’ via Cooking Vinyl. Highlights of the album campaign have so far included exceeding the phenomenal career landmark of a billion streams, as well as playing two huge stadium shows as guests to Coldplay, which saw her duet with Chris Martin on ‘Let Somebody Go’. The record builds upon the huge success of her 2019 set ‘The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change’ which took her to a global audience and won influential fans such as Taylor Swift.
Nina says, “‘Älskar’ is about love in all its raw forms, whether that be my relationship, family, friends, or learning to love myself. I really like the dynamics of the album. It has that Swedish feel to it, as I got to work with a lot of my idols from the pop scene there. But it also has a Scottish element too – the storytelling and the folk – which influenced the other half of it.”
As we’ve heard from singles such as ‘When You Lose Someone’ and ‘Pressure Makes Diamonds’, ‘Älskar’ switches confidently between confessional, emotionally-charged songwriting and instantly addictive modernist pop bangers. The record’s new focus track ‘I Should Be A Bird’ comes from its introspective side, its acoustic guitar melody providing the backdrop for a lyric which tackles the complicated emotions of being an empath and trying to set boundaries when those close to you are struggling. As Nina explains, “My first reaction is to help them through it but sometimes you can make it worse by being there too much.” The song is accompanied by a video, which was filmed with the beautiful natural scenery of the Brecon Beacons and Wolf James.
The project commenced when Nina visited her family in Sweden. It was a trip which also provided an opportunity to work with a range of talent from the nation’s music scene, including Elvira Anderfjärd (best known for her Taylor Swift remixes), Jack & Coke (Tove Lo,Carly Rae Jepson). The two roots of Nina’s family heritage bookend the album. The tone-setting ‘Gaol’ (Scottish-Gaelic for love) is a collage of voice-notes from fans, each saying “I love you” in languages ranging from Estonianto Korean, while the gorgeously glacial title track nods to both Sigur Rós and Aurora.
There are numerous other new highlights set to be discovered by fans, including the beat-driven, hedonistic romance of ‘Teenage Chemistry’ and the stuttering, playful pop that bounces within ‘Limited Edition’. But it never shies away from confronting issues head on, for example ‘Older Guys’, is a song about reassessing what Nina thought she knew about love to what she knows about love today. Nina wrote or co-wrote all twelve songs that feature on ‘Älskar’ and also has production credits on half of the record. Her other collaborators include top tier songwriter Dan Wilson (Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’)and Grammy-winning mixer Manon Grandjean (Stormzy, Dave).
Tonight will see Nina perform at the Blackpool Illuminations Switch-On, staged in association with MTV, which also features Tom Grennan and Mae Muller. She will then embark upon a UK and European headline tour which starts in November. Remaining tickets for the shows, listed below, are available HERE.
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