Nina Nesbitt Comes Home

Folk-pop singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt is “coming back down to earth” when we chat over Zoom. Our conversation follows a short run of shows in support of her new album, the cinematic, Americana-inflected Mountain Music. As much as Nesbitt loves sharing her art with audiences, she comes across as something of a homebody during our chat; I ask her where she’d like to run away to (a question inspired by the LP’s quietly insistent gem of a track “On the Run”), and she quickly responds that she’d abscond to her own house just outside London, where she’s calling me from now. 

“I moved to a field at the end of lockdown, and after living in London for over 10 years, I felt like I could finally breathe,” Nesbitt says. “And it almost felt a little bit like Scotland, like I was back home.”

In fact, her most recent run of dates ended in Glasgow—a proper homecoming show. The entire tour had a DIY feel to it, with handmade sets that Nesbitt created herself, as well as wildly popular shirts featuring her doodled artwork that she initially didn’t think anyone would buy. She didn’t have much of a budget for stage design, so she ran down to Hobbycraft before the London show, grabbing yarn, cardboard and other art supplies to decorate with. Nesbitt cut the cardboard into mountains and leaves—adhering to the “mountain chic” style she’s been touting for the tour—in the hopes of making a cozy, relaxing space for people to gather, the type of place that immediately elicits a contented sigh. 

It was a far cry from where Nesbitt was about a year ago, about ready to quit as an artist. The whole endeavor had lost its luster for her, since these days having a successful music career seems to be about everything but the music itself. Focusing on tertiary elements like social media made Nesbitt feel like she was stagnating in her craft, so she pivoted to songwriting for other musicians across a variety of genres: K-pop, R&B, dance and more.

“It’s such a lovely community of people,” Nesbitt says of songwriting. “You’re creating every day, there’s no pressure of putting the songs out. And you just meet so many talented people, so many people that are on the same wavelength as you.”

That lack of pressure meant that Nesbitt could also write at home, in the early mornings or evenings, without worrying about where these songs were going. There were no label expectations weighing on her, which was a welcome change from the early days of her career. Nesbitt was still a teenager when she signed a publishing deal and moved from the tiny Scottish village of Balerno to the heady hubbub of London. 

“I left when I was 17, I think before I could even appreciate where I grew up,” Nesbitt tells me. She was so thrilled to be in London with these opportunities at her fingertips that she said yes to everything. Her first album, Peroxide, was released a decade ago on the legendary Island Records. The LP feels like a time capsule of singer-songwriter pop at the time: sassy piano moments on “Selfies” bring to mind Sara Bareilles, and Nesbitt’s heavy side bangs on the cover art immediately transported me back to my early college days. Hallmarks of that time aside, Peroxide showcases her talent as a storyteller, one she carried with her on her glossier, synth-forward albums released via indie label Cooking Vinyl: The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change (2019) and Älskar (2022). Looking back, she says, “I really didn’t breathe in my 20s at all, until obviously the pandemic hit, and it made me do a lot of reflecting and reevaluating.” 

Part of that introspection involved fully appreciating where she comes from, and that pride shines through in Mountain Music, which was released via her own label Apple Tree Records. The album’s genre itself is a homecoming: Nesbitt made folk music at the start of her career, largely out of necessity. There were no studios near her, so she’d record herself singing and playing acoustic guitar then share the results on the Internet. Now, with a full band and lush texturing thanks to co-producer Peter Miles, Nesbitt returns to her folk roots, but with a more expansive sonic palette. She collected found sounds from both the recording studio in Devon and the mountains where they captured press photos so that Miles and drummer Aaron Graham, who also works in sound design, could create the atmospheric interludes between tracks. From the cracking of twigs underfoot to crashing waves or the creak of a door, these little moments foster a sense of place throughout Mountain Music.

On the anthemic “I’m Coming Home,” which has a bit of early 2010s stomp clap to it, Nesbitt paints a vivid picture of her town, with all its enchantments (“Cobbled streets / evergreens / castles”) and less scenic detours (“White grass, artificial ski slope / I’m speeding by the east coast train line”). “Still got that northern blood,” she intones fervently, nodding both to her childhood in Scotland and her Swedish roots. (Nesbitt’s mother is Swedish, and the singer used to participate in Santa Lucia festivities, a Scandinavian tradition in which young girls wear wreaths of candles on their heads to honor the saint’s day. “I think I had the battery [wreath],” she recalls. “Only the main girl got the real candles, and I never quite made my way there.”) The notion of returning home is framed as a triumphant one, with a chorus of voices rocketing skyward and stirring instrumental drama, but it’s also a fantastical idea in a way. While Balerno is still there, sitting on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Nesbitt’s parents have left; she can’t go home, not in the way she once did. It was a stark awakening for her, as her family home in Balerno was a steady haven amidst all the madness of touring and the rollercoaster that is the music industry. With this context, the repeated line, “Put the kettle on the stove / leave the light on so they know / I’m coming home,” transforms from a simple request to a bittersweet invocation, a hope that maybe the right rituals will keep that space alive. Her songs weave their own magic, conjuring up that time and place in memory, even if she can’t physically return. 

“Big Things, Small Town” radiates country warmth, and while the sound is undoubtedly Americana, that genre itself is indebted to Scottish folk music (as well as numerous other traditions) thanks to generations of immigrants swapping songs. Nesbitt found herself inspired by contemporary American country albums and the artists’ rich, loving descriptions of their hometowns—in particular the way Zach Bryan and Noah Kahan write about Oklahoma and Vermont, respectively. “I just thought it was really interesting how they capture these lesser known places and make them really interesting,” she says. “And I wanted to try and do that with my own album: Take influence from the sound, but narrative-wise, tell the story of coming from a small village in Scotland and living in London.”

A honkey tonk twang dances through the track as Nesbitt describes Balerno—“There’s a church, a farm shop / And a place to kill your brain”—and decides that size doesn’t really matter when it comes to your hometown. One of the best parts of “Big Things, Small Town” is not just Nesbitt’s love for the village, but her recognition that everyone has a place like that in their hearts: “All the cars are passing through / And they never pass again / Cause they’re probably on their way / To somewhere the same to them.” This sense of perspective, with Nesbitt always looking outside herself, keeps the album from feeling navel-gaze-y. It makes sense, too, if you’re into astrology—she’s a Cancer, hence the emotional intuitiveness, and a Leo moon, which explains her love for performing. Her empathy connects the songs on Mountain Music, weaving a silvery gossamer web that is just as dainty yet strong as her magnificent voice.

Never is that more apparent than on the sparse piano ballad “Painkiller,” a track about staunching pain with alcohol or other passing diversions instead of pursuing the arduous yet worthwhile path to healing. Growing up in Scotland and later living in London, Nesbitt’s been surrounded by men who prefer to drown their sorrows in a pint glass rather than address the problem at hand. 

“When I was younger, I used to get frustrated with the men in my life, because I’d be like, ‘Why can’t you just talk to me about this?’ And then as you get older, you experience your own ups and downs and things that really are challenging that maybe you don’t want to deal with,” Nesbitt explains. “And I think I’m quite similar in that way, where I’d rather just push [my feelings] down and get on with it. It’s a song of acceptance and understanding why people are the way they are, and just saying, ‘Yeah, it’s all right to not have your shit together, because life can be hard.’” 

The following track, “Anger,” is one of Nesbitt’s best to date. She’s a soft-spoken person by nature and keen to say that everything is fine in order to avoid conflict, but “Anger” taps into the roiling rage seething just beneath her calm, polite surface. This is a number that will surely be scream-sung into many hairbrushes. There’s a gorgeous grit to her voice at the song’s climax as she confesses: “‘Cuz I’ve got this anger inside me / and it brings me to my knees.” Nesbitt’s singing has always been stunning, but when she ditches expectations and embraces her uglier instincts, her vocals possess a newfound beauty. The accompanying music video, directed by Wolf James, shows Nesbitt wielding a hatchet and sporting a long, red tulle skirt—perhaps the perfect analogue for her ability to be both delicate and fiery. At one point she throws old crockery against the walls of a ruin—“I broke all the plates in the kitchen / Had the neighbor calling up my phone”—though she admits that she had a hard time actually breaking them.

“I was kind of scared one of them was going to sort of cut my face or my eye or something,” Nesbitt says with a laugh. “I was actually a very gentle thrower when it came to it. We did actually have to get a stunt thrower in. The director had to smash it—she was like, ‘No, you’re not doing it hard enough’. So she actually came in and smashed a few. I’m just a gentle, gentle girl.”

Her inherent gentleness and earnestness make this an album that will speak to many; there’s a univerality in the specifics of Nesbitt’s story. She shares with us what she knows about the ups and downs of life—an uneven yet thrilling journey, much like the rugged Scottish mountains.

Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s associate music editor. Go harass her on Twitter @theclaremartin.