Nanna shares brand new live session alongside additional European tour dates

05 September 2023, 10:00 | Written by Tyler Damara Kelly

(News)

(Nanna)

Of Monsters and Men vocalist Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir has shared a new live session recorded at Electric Lady Studios, which features tracks from her debut solo album, How To Start A Garden.

Nanna had been scheduled to make her solo late night television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. As she and her band touched down in New York from Iceland, she found out the appearance was canceled due to the WGA strike.

In town with a night free, friends at Electric Lady Studios invited her and the band to celebrate the release of How To Start A Garden at the studio, playing songs from the album and toasting its official arrival at midnight. She and her band delivered special renditions of “Disaster Master” and “Milk”. The album was produced by Nanna alongside collaborators Aaron Dessner (The National, Taylor Swift) and Josh Kaufman (Bonny Light Horseman, War on Drugs, Hiss Golden Messenger).

“A lot of things had to end for this album to become what it is,” said Nanna. “A long term relationship, my prior sense of home and belonging and security. But it’s also an ode to the joy of new beginnings: new relationships, a new home, new friendships, a new sense of self. The album takes place in this in-between state. I wrote it in Iceland and recorded it between Iceland and upstate New York. It captures a very specific time in my life of curiosity and reflection, when I felt very much in the middle of a surreal new reality and didn’t have a clear path in my direction—like how a snowstorm is somehow chaotic but calm at the same time.”

Following a North American solo headline tour which included Newport Folk and Outside Lands festivals, acclaimed singer, songwriter, producer, and Of Monsters and Men co-founder Nanna will head to Europe and the UK for a string of international dates.

After headlining Iceland Airwaves in her native Iceland November 2-4, she will touch down in Europe for shows in Amsterdam at Bitterzoet on 18 November, and at Botanique in Brussels on 19 November. The additional dates coincide with the already announced London show at Omeara on 21 November. This marks her inaugural global headline jaunt with this solo project.

How To Start A Garden is out now. For more information on Nanna's forthcoming European tour dates, and to purchase tickets, visit nannanannananna.com.