TThe song begins (can you hear it?) / The door opens (can you feel it?)There's a sense of anticipation that's palpable in the rollicking chorus of “Buzz” and throughout NIKI's third album of the same name. This excitement for what's just around the corner is hard-earned, as the album's upbeat indie-pop is born out of exhaustion, not excitement.
The singer-songwriter, born Nicole Zephania, was running on empty. “I'll be honest with you, I was feeling really overwhelmed with this whole artistic life being uprooted all the time,” the 25-year-old says. NME She spoke about her experience touring in support of her latest album, Nicole, in 2022. “I was also trying to work on a whole new identity and sound and I had to bring it all together onstage for the audience and the fans.”
To get out of that difficult situation, she wrote what she would later call “Strong Girl,” a reminder that she “has to be much stronger than she initially thought she could be.” NIKI sings earnestly:I am a pendulum…I know I can swing the pendulum, I always will swing the pendulum…If I can’t be everybody’s strong girl, then who am I?/Aren’t I?“
Zefanya answers the rhetorical question: “Growing up in an Asian family, there were a lot of expectations. I'm also the oldest child, so perfectionism is ingrained in me. 'Strong Girl' is a synthesis of all that. This feeling that I can't let myself fall apart, because if I do, then everything else and everyone else will fall apart too. But that's not true. It's just how it feels in my heart.”
Still, NIKI keeps moving forward. Since leaving the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for the US at age 18, she first attended college in Nashville before dropping out after two semesters and signing with 88rising to pursue music full-time in Los Angeles. She started out covering songs in her room with an acoustic guitar, and has since expanded her genre-bending, adventurous catalogue into a mix of '90s-influenced R&B (her 2018 EP “Zephyr”), gleaming conceptual pop (“Moonchild”), and more. NMEShe finally returned to her folk-pop roots in the past two years with Nicole, an album named Best Asian Album of 2020 and featuring songs she first wrote as a teenager.
“When I'm artistically stuck, I like to look back as a palate cleanser,” she says. “I hesitated to update the songs, but I wanted to stay true to their spirit. That saccharine drama feels like both the appeal and superpower of this album. [‘Nicole’]It's very hard for a 25-year-old to regain the integrity he had when he was 17.”
After all, Nicole's personal turnaround was essential for Nikki. Marvel's “Every Summertime” is a light-hearted, fun love song. Xiangqi” has exploded into popularity far beyond the superhero movie's intended audience, trending on TikTok and racking up nearly 400 million plays on Spotify. It's one of NIKI's most-streamed singles, but she admits there was “a certain amount of detachment” in writing it, as it was written for “a project that's bigger than me or what I have to say.”
“'Nicole' was kind of a way of saying, 'Thank you for listening, but this is my more personal, diary-like side and what feels essentially like me in the form of music,'” NIKI says. “'Nicole' was the stepping stone I needed to reach the artist I want to be and the kind of music that really fills and enriches my soul. I feel like I needed to release 'Nicole' in order to release 'Buzz,'” she concludes.
Like “Strong Girl,” NIKI wrote the rest of “Buzz” during the “Nicole” tour, making the decision to cut long verses and tweak chord progressions to maximize its live potential. One song that was previously difficult to perform was “High School In Jakarta.” “I was really out of breath during the first few shows, and it was no one's fault but myself,” laughs NIKI.
“[I dug] It goes deep into the musicality of my writing, but I feel that sometimes it gets obscured by very pop formulas.”
In contrast, “Buzz” is sparser, more relaxed and looser: “The goal was to bring a more relaxed feel to the stage.” NIKI brought the song to producers who've worked with artists she admires: “Nicole” collaborators Ethan Gruska (who also worked on Phoebe Bridgers' “Punisher”) and Tyler Chester (who recently worked on Madison Cunningham's “Revealer”).
The studio sessions with them were sometimes “nervous” for NIKI, with some songs recorded live in one take or without a metronome, “a more organic, free and musical environment, something I've always longed for and dreamed of in terms of playing live”.
The process was a double-edged sword: it “revealed the question of, 'How good a musician am I?'” but it also allowed NIKI to “dig deeper into the musicality of my songwriting, which I feel sometimes gets obscured by very pop formulas of four-chord progressions and syllabic lyric choices.”
Overall, “Buzz” is a colorful portrayal of great loves chased and lost. NIKI expertly chronicles soulmate prospects (“Magnets”), encounters (“Too Much Of A Good Thing”), and one-off breakups (“Tsunami”). There's just as much room to mourn an amicable breakup (“Take Care”) as there is to lash out at an ex-lover. On “Colossal Loss,” NIKI cries: “I'm so glad I got my hands on you, I …Is this what kids call boring? / I'm happy to report that boring is a very wonderful thing…because you and I don't talk /To my enormous gain and your enormous loss“
The album quietly ends with the oddly hopeful standout “Nothing Can,” a song about finding comfort in the idea of saving yourself from pain and suffering.Nobody can do anythingIn the spirit of “Buzz,” she's keeping her eyes peeled for what happens next.But you still smile at strangers and make plans for the weekend…but you still write another song and have breakfast with your band.“
“There are still many moments of joy, hope and freedom [that] “It's a common human experience in the sense of redemption,” NIKI says. “That was the beginning of Buzz. Learning to fall in love with touring and making music that spoke to me, rather than just the overwhelming feeling that this is what everyone wanted me to be, early on in my career.”
And with the Buzz season approaching, who does NIKI want to be now? “The best way to describe it is that I felt like I had my first awakening. Buzz was my first time stepping into myself, my true essence, my power. It was my first adventure where I was totally steering my own ship. I felt more confident in myself as an artist.”
NIKI's Buzz will be released via 88rising on August 9th. NIKI will begin a world tour in support of the album in September.
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