red steppes - I Did Not Speak It music video
Release date: January 26th 2018
Artist Information
- Label: Native Cat Recordings
- Genre: folk
- Hometown: Oakland, CA
- Influences: Jeff Buckley, Emmylou Harris, The Weather Station
- Sounds like: Joanna Newsom, Nick Drake, Iron & Wine
Biography
Singer-songwriter Nika States, who performs under the alias red steppes, has been writing and performing songs for years. Living in the Bay Area, her geographical inclinations have led her to nurse a deep preoccupation with a sense of place, writing songs with an ocular lyrical panache that deals first with finding a setting – usually one that’s near and dear to her heart.
In the case of new single I Did Not Speak It, the greater context is the salt marsh and its sinking ghost town of Drawbridge, a straight shot up the train tracks from Alviso, CA. “It’s the place I take the people most important to me,” she says of a view to which she was introduced by her mother, one difficult sunset.
It’s an aural testament, on the surface, to the power of music to call you back to the places you used to know. Hidden beneath lush chordings and mildly minor folk tones, however, lies an elegy about mortality: a musing about the way people deal with change and how death can affect those around them – all set in Drawbridge.
Upcoming Shows
- January 25th // San Francisco, CA // The Lost Church
- February 24th // Big Sur, CA // Henry Miller Library
- February 27th // Los Angeles, CA // The Hotel Cafe
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