African Music News: Nicky Schrire blurs the line between genre and continental divides on her latest album, Nowhere Girl (2024)

A decade has stretched between Nicky Schrire’s last full body of work and Nowhere Girl, but her latest comes as a gorgeously woven tapestry of the years between. 

Her’s is a dynamic sonic scope, hinged on a jazz-infused composition backdrop which reminds me irresistibly of animated musical soundtracks which spun through my youth circa the late ’90s and early 2000s. Silvery vocalism spins poetry into intricate landscapes and emotional tales of loss and love, lives lived and left behind. She blurs the lines between genre and dives into just about every corner of her life with uplifting nuance. 

A Canadian quartet brings her compositions to life, while Schrire waxes gorgeously poetic on her untethered identity. Title track “Nowhere Girl” kicks things off on just that note, chronicling her self-identity with heritage stretching across South Africa, Canada and Britain with the overarching sentiment, “Home is but a maddening word.” 

She summarises five years living in the beating heart of New York City in the sprawling sentimentalities of “Train”, captures a month indulging in macaroons and croissants and lovers in “Paris”, while outro “My Love”, featuring Julio Sigauque and a lick of Maskandi, expresses her abiding love for her African roots. Wafts of her British heritage come through in the folky strains of “Father” and “A Morning” as she pays homage to both with silvery candour. 

Schrire has the ability to paint vivid imagery in her crystalline poetry and the entire album breathes with it. Awash in influence from across the scope of her life, Nowhere Girl encapsulates beautifully what it is to belong to everything all at once.

Feature pic by Matt Griffiths