Rahill will be holding a record release show May 13th at Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right. She’ll also appear for an in-store performance and signing at Rough Trade NYC May 14th along with a performance for The Getty Center’s Off the 405 series in LA July 29th.
Buy tickets – here
Pre-Save / Pre-Order ‘Flowers At Your Feet’ – here
Rahill has shared hazy new single “Futbol”, the final preview before she releases her debut solo album ‘Flowers At Your Feet’, out May 12th on Big Dada. The Alex Epton-produced track is based on and inspired by Rahill’s life-long love for football and its ritualistic qualities, linking back to family and the connections it builds.
“Soccer built my confidence, built belief, determination, endurance. Brought me peace, the field was a different kind of canvas, the sport, a different kind of artistry.” Rahill says of the new single. “‘Futbol’ was the working title that stayed on but initially I had intended to name the track ‘Sacred Ritual’ as quoted by the great poet/playwright, Pasolini. When describing the sport he called soccer the last sacred ritual. The sentiment resonates, it’s a sacred practice for me, years later after travel teams and playing at a highly competitive level, I still play. As a child of immigrants, much like the rest of the world outside the United States, soccer is the sport that matters most in my family. Ties me back to my siblings, my father, my entire family in Iran.”
“Futbol” follows recent cowboy jazz single “Bended Light” (co-written with Jasper Marsalis and Alex Epton) and the psychedelic “Fables” (featuring vocal and guitar contributions from Beck). Early press support comes from the likes of UPROXX, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Indie Sleaze (Date with the Night Podcast), Northern Transmissions, Clash and more.
‘Flowers At Your Feet’ – which across its 14 tracks features collaborations with Beck and Jasper Marsalis (Slauson Malone) – follows Rahill’s nostalgic 2022 covers EP ‘Sun Songs’ and sees her moving along a journey of self-acceptance and self-love; reflecting on childhood and family while honouring the people and moments that defined her. The project draws on elements of trip-hop, jazz and alt-rock music all underpinned by Rahill’s reverent and thoughtful lyricism, invoking the spirit of Broadcast to Madlib. Recorded in phases during the lockdown, the album was created in close collaboration between Rahill and producer Alex Epton (FKA Twigs, Arca) who immediately identified the strength and potential of Rahill’s pre-existing solo compositions, some of which she’d written years earlier and others written spontaneously during the recording process.
Rahill will be holding a record release show May 13th at Brooklyn’s Baby’s All Right. Event info and tickets can be found here. Rahill will also have an in-store appearance at Rough Trade NYC on May 14th, performing and signing store-purchased copies of ‘Flowers At Your Feet’. Event info and tickets here. Rahill will take part in The Getty Center’s Off The 405 outdoor concert series later this summer on July 29th. RSVP available July 6th here.
Rahill Jamalifard is a multidisciplinary artist and musician hailing from Lansing, Michigan and presently based in upstate New York’s idyllic Hudson Valley. As a founding member of Brooklyn garage-rock mainstays, Habibi, Rahill garnered a reputation for alchemizing an eclectic range of influences, distilling them into captivating and heavy pop songs that gestured towards the modes and melodies of the Iranian/American household in which she was raised—a heritage she has continued to nurture via successive trips to Iran. This affinity for Iranian culture and music is increasingly present in her emergent solo output. Indeed, maps of her familial home cities, Shiraz and Isfahan, grace the insert of her upcoming debut solo LP, ‘Flowers At Your Feet’.
The album’s title intimates the deeply personal and often contemplative mode that these songs inhabit. ‘Flowers At Your Feet’ finds Rahill tending, almost diaristically, to memory — reflecting on childhood and family, sifting through time, ultimately arriving at a state of quiet grace and self love. Peppered throughout ‘Flowers At Your Feet’ are artifacts lovingly culled from Rahill’s private cosmogony: field recordings, audio from home movies, references to film and poetry, allusions to sports legends. Presented without overt explanation, these sonic novelties are nevertheless intuitively, universally familiar, prompting the listener to construct their very own memory palace.
Ever the autodidact, Rahill works across mediums with singular ease and earnestness. Her visual art (including a recent collection of so-called “primitive” crayon portraits, ‘I’m This I’m That I’m in the World’) has been exhibited internationally. Her keen aesthetic eye has led her to collaborations in the world of fashion, most notably a live performance of songs from ‘Flowers At Your Feet’ and “Haenim” (a track from ‘Sun Songs’) in Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s SS23 New York Fashion Week show. All of which is merely to say, Rahill has been toiling ceaselessly, not in pursuit of fame, but authentic self-expression and community. With ‘Flowers At Your Feet’, she is prepared to share the fruits of her labor.
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