FOLLOWING HER DEBUT EP NOTHING TO LOSE
SET TO PLAY SECRET GARDEN PARTY, CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL, LIVE AT LEEDS AND MORE
“Real music getting made, sharing good vibes and good vibrations. I love this” – Zane Lowe
“The sun is beaming and it’s finally summer! For me 30 degrees encapsulates the perfect summer’s day: you’re falling in love with your surroundings, chilling with your loved ones, laughing, dancing, and falling in love with the sun! ” – Nectar Woode
A collective call for the sun, today British-Ghanaian artist Nectar Woode releases her immaculate new single “30 Degrees”, out now on Communion Records. Seeking transparency and honesty in her joyful songwriting, South-London’s newest soul star released her debut EP Nothing To Lose last year, featuring the highly praised “Good Vibrations”.
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, Alice Phoebe Lou, Eli Smart, and Jasmine Jethwa. Having attended Glastonbury last week with Spotify UK, interviewing peers and artists from Masego to Hak Baker, Nectar has a run of festival dates this summer, performing at Secret Garden Party, Cambridge Folk Festival, Live At Leeds and more. See full tour dates below.
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.
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, with the more streamlined pop
noise of co-writers and producers Bad Sounds (Arlo Parks, Rose Gray) and Tobie Tripp (Tom Misch,
Dave). 30 Degrees is another example of the rich patchwork of influences at the heart of Nectar’s writing
in full bloom
TOUR DATES
28th July – Secret Garden Party, Huntingdon
28th July – Cambridge Folk Festival, Cambridge
16th August – Wild Fields, Norwich
23rd August – Green Belt Festival, Kettering
28th September – Last Time Out Festival, Leeds
16th November – Live At Leeds Festival, Leeds
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