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CMU Approved
Approved: Nardeydey
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 24 October 2019
A member of jazz groups Nérija, Maisha and Seed Ensemble, guitarist Shirley Tetteh is pretty damn busy before we even get to her solo project Nardeydey. Now back with ‘Dreamin’, her first single in the guise since ‘Freefalling’ at the beginning of the year, she’s set to release her debut EP next month.
The strength of ‘Dreamin’ is in Tetteh’s light touch on the guitar, which makes the track feel like it’s floating just above the ground. Lyrically it’s somewhat heavier though.
She explains: “‘Dreamin’ is about being an adult but not being able to get your life together. It starts off using a conversation I had with my mum as inspiration, about not eating all the food she’d cooked immediately or there’d be none left – with me adding the line about being unable to cook – even though that was not a part of the original exchange. That line, for me, is an interesting intersection of sharing shame with what might be self-pride: ‘my dreams are why I can’t cook though'”.
“‘Dreamin’ is at once the source of someone’s potential, and the reasons they may stay frustrated/unrealised in the real world, whatever that means”, she concludes.
The EP, titled ‘Nardeydey’, is set for release at the end of November through Lucky Number. You can also catch her live at The Sebright Arms in Hackney on 14 Nov as part of The Great Escape’s First Fifty shows.
Listen to ‘Dreamin’ here:
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