Even voorstellen – Nectar Woode – Head above water EP

NECTAR WOODE ANNOUNCES SECOND EP “HEAD ABOVE WATER”
SET TO BE RELEASED ON 8 NOVEMBER 2024
Nectar Woode - Head Above Water (youtube.com)
“This is the most passionate song in the project. It’s fighting through the bad times and focusing on the love and positive sides of life. It’s a note to not give up and fight for what you want in life even if it doesn’t go your way" – Nectar

British-Ghanaian singer songwriter Nectar Woode announces details of her second EP, Head Above Water, to be released on 8 November 2024 on Communion Records. Seeking transparency and honesty in her joyful songwriting, South-London’s newest soul star today also shares the title track from the EP and the blissful official video, conceptualised by imagining what postcards from around Nectar’s London would look like.

Described as “one of the best new British voices'' (Jack Saunders) and “blossoming” - a word which encapsulates her distinctive name - Nectar’s songwriting is influenced by the musical roots of her Ghanaian heritage and the raw storytelling of singers like Lauryn Hill that first piqued her interest as a teen. Now 25-years-old, Nectar has already headlined a sold-out Omeara and supported the likes of Jordan Mckampa, Jalen Ngonda and Jasmine Jethwa. Bringing her sunshine to festivals with latest track “30 Degrees” - tracking the British summer - from Cambridge Folk Fest to Wild Fields, Nectar was also selected by Spotify UK as one of three Fresh Finds artists to document Glastonbury, where she interviewed peers including Masego and Hak Baker.

Wanting to create music that “fills the soul,” Nectar strips the song down to its rawest form to convey an emotion, then builds her sonic world around it:. “With West African music, you can hear that rawness so clearly with the rhythm and the songwriting, and then I do like my indie side - with Joni Mitchell that quality is so obvious too,” she explains. “I remember so vividly the moment I wanted to be a songwriter as my profession. I was 15 and there was a video on YouTube of Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged, and it’s just her with an acoustic guitar, chatting. I just watched it and cried”. The rising artist is able to seamlessly merge her deep passion for the greats, jazz improvisation and contemporary artists, including Cleo Sol and Michael Kiwanuka, to create a sound that envelopes the listener with love and Good Vibrations. Presenting Soho Radio’s Women In Jazz, Nectar is telling the story of unheard voices in a scene dominated by men, as her own voice begins to get heard. Having already achieved over 4 Million streams for her debut EP, Nectar Woode has received praise from the likes of Zane Lowe, Elton John, Jack Saunders and Sian Eleri, and been BBC Radio 1’s Next Wave artist twice, as well as featuring on BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends, Spotify RADAR and BBC Radio 2.

Having been raised in “a working class area in Milton-Keynes”, Nectar grew up around so many talented people from different cultural backgrounds, but she noticed that what helped kids stay on the right track was “keeping them occupied with creative spaces. It’s so sad that only financially stable families are able to provide creative spaces for their kids. I think it should be for everyone. Everyone is creative, and they should be provided the means to explore that.” Nectar’s Ghanaian amateur saxophone-player father would help create that space for her and fill the house with jazz and Highlife music, while her English mother worked as an artist and fashion pattern cutter; exposed to a creative way of life and a wide variety of sounds, both mainstream and niche, it was able to open Nectar’s ears to a world of sonic possibility.

Nectar credits the early 2010’s wave of London singers (Winehouse, Duffy) for making her want to move to the capital, but it was the people she met when she arrived that truly steered Nectar towards the warm, jazz-infused sound that she inhabits today.. “I grew up with Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, but uni was when I dived really deep into it; listening to their albums, studying it,” she says. “I had friends who loved the same music so we made bands who would cover that music and then write our own stuff inspired by it, and from there it developed. Having released a few songs independently over the past couple of years, Nothing To Lose merged her improvisational ethos of the jam sessions that she cut her teeth playing in.