Aldous Harding these days is an international, award winning artist. With this album, her self titled debut, you get a taste of her brilliance, as an emerging artist and why, from the outset, she caught the eye of locally and internationally renowned record labels.
She started in Lyttelton, a port town on the outskirts of Christchurch, New Zealand. There she kept sailors in check with cheek and a strong-songed tongue. She caught the ear of locals Ben Edwards and Delaney Davidson playing under her own name, Hanna Harding, alongside band The Eastern.
Aldous Harding's lead single, Hunter, has been characterised by Harding as a gothic fairytale. This is folk music, simple and bleak with Hardings fragile coo reminiscent of retiring, 60s-era folk singers Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs. Hunter seems to occupy a place outside of time, opening with the refrain, He's a hunter, he's a good man/Be brave when he brings you nothing home and closing with a vision of blood streaming down a river.