niina - honestly, does this smell off to you? (2024) [Hi-Res]

Today sees one of electronic music’s most versatile emerging talents niina announce her feel-good and ambitious debut album honestly, does this smell off to you?, due for release on August 8 via ADA. To celebrate the announcement, niina has shared the body-moving lead single ‘summer high’ alongside news of her debut headline show at Rae’s on August 8.

‘summer high’ is a homage to bliss-filled summer moments of abandoning your problems on the dancefloor and an anthemic celebration of women as niina explains: “I just want to really celebrate women – there’s so much incredibleness to being a woman and any opportunity I can take to empower myself or others is a good thing. I made the song last year and I actually envisaged the video for it really early on. It’s about getting fire in your tummy and just letting loose, going out and feeling limitless. It’s a moment of not questioning the world and blocking out anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.”

Trusting the process is integral to niina’s debut album, whether it’s lighthearted lyrical observations or tackling dark emotions, niina’s songwriting tells the story of a twenty-something who’s winging it through life and rebelling against the comedown of adulthood. Her unfiltered creativity and ambition is what sets her apart from her peers, combining the sentiment of her previous two EPs while also carving out new musical territory that sees her beginnings in alt-pop now evolve into dance music proper. An empowering, confessional album, it was written, recorded and produced entirely by niina from her bedroom and celebrates self-acceptance, creating a space for people to sing, dance, cry and not take life too seriously.

The album is niina’s most personal to date and explores, with searing honesty, struggles she’s had with her mental health. “For the last four years I’ve been on a real journey of real bad lows at times, but those moments taught me a lot about myself,” she explains, referencing depression she experienced in her mid-twenties. On the album’s visuals and videos, there is a furry recurring figure called ‘Patrick’, who niina describes as a kind of “harrowing yet curious monster” who represents the problems we’re all running from. She adds: “But those moments, as dark as they were, gave me new ways to tackle life and I ended up feeling more empowered about how I approach the world after going through that.” A big lesson she learned was to live in the moment and accept “that everything will be fine in the end. I want to give people permission to say, ‘hey, I’m so fucking lost, but let’s have a dance and enjoy life anyway,”
niina is the force behind some of the most entrancing and uplifting electronic music you’ll hear this year. An immersive multi-disciplinary project, the day-to-day creative director has been making music in her bedroom since moving to London almost a decade ago. After discovering her sound within 3 EP projects that blended an irresistible pop sensibility with the euphoria of the dancefloor, niina is already making waves in underground circles and has been building her profile within the UK tastemaker circuit with remixes for the likes of Joy Anonymous, Godford, Ben Böhmer, Bimini & Goldfrapp.