Lyttelton, NZ · folk · art-pop

Aldous Harding

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New Zealand's shapeshifting folk enigma — every song a different possession, delivered with unnerving stillness, strange voices, and total command of a silent room.

Aldous Harding was born Hannah Sian Topp in 1990; Harding is her stepfather's surname. Both her parents are musicians, and her mother, the Canadian folk singer Lorina Harding, bought her a guitar when she was seven or eight, around the time her stepfather ran a guitar shop. The family moved often, living in Auckland and Dunedin and running an organic farm near Geraldine before settling in Lyttelton.

She made her recording debut at thirteen, singing with her mother on a song they wrote together about their relationship. At Logan Park High School in Dunedin she sang alongside fellow songwriter Nadia Reid and wrote her first song at fifteen. Lyttelton's small music scene, which also produced Marlon Williams and Tiny Ruins, proved decisive for her career.

Her self-titled debut album, released in 2014 through Flying Nun, drew on English folk music. She then signed to 4AD and travelled to Wales to record with producer John Parish, a partnership that continued on Party and Designer. Her records pair simple instrumentation with unusual vocal choices; she shifts register and character from song to song, sometimes within a verse.

The single "The Barrel", from Designer, won the APRA Silver Scroll award, and her fourth album, Warm Chris, released in 2022, became her first number one record in New Zealand. She has also collaborated with Marlon Williams and Perfume Genius, and works regularly with video director Martin Sagadin.

On stage she is known for a fixed, deliberate physical presence and minimal address to the audience, which tends to concentrate attention on the songs themselves. Her lyrics are elliptical rather than confessional.

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folkart-pop