New York-based Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist and musician Rahill Jamalifard, perhaps best known as lead singer of Habibi and now simply as Rahill, dropped her debut full-length solo indie-pop record, Flowers At Your Feet, via Big Dada on May 12.
The 14-track album, with its shimmering synth and floating vocals, features intricate lyricism exploring memories from childhood through adult life. In one poignant example, the sparsely instrumented “Ode to Dad,” Rahill talks about how “Outside the world’s gone mad / Dad’s inside of my head / He reads me tortured stories / Of heroes who died unnamed.” Other songs, like “Healing,” incorporate voice mails and audio snippets from home videos to create an audio scrapbook of a life spent with family.
In a Twitter thread, the artist thanked her inspirations and talked about the album: “So much to say, so many corners of my mind, memory and world etched into this record… stories behind stories. But I’ll save those for when I see you. Big advocate for letting the music do the talking! Go listen! I love you! Waves of Indonesia, car auctions of middle America, playgrounds of Brooklyn, audio treasures of VHS, every voice that has spoken to me repeated here, I love you.”
While Rahill has no local tour dates announced yet — just one show in LA at the end of July — that “I’ll save those for when I see you” message feels promising. While we keep our eyes peeled for a Boston stop, stream Flowers At Your Feet below.
***