NAVVY REVEALS NEW SINGLE 'SOMEBODY ELSE' + <em>THE FINAL PIECES</em> EP OUT TODAY
Image Credit: Matt Hurley
“Navvy is ready to claim this year as her own”
- CLASH
“A gutsy alt-pop sound”
- THE LINE OF BEST FIT
"Over the last 18 months, it's become apparent that there's something incredibly special in New Zealand-based musician NAVVY"
- PILERATS
“All sorts of electro-pop bliss”
- WONDERLAND
New Zealand pop artist Navvy today delights fans with the immediate release of her third EP titled The Final Pieces. Sitting in tandem to the EP, Navvy reveals a striking new single ‘Somebody Else’. Co-written with Thomas Stoneman, ‘Somebody Else’ is a tribute to Navvy’s very own realisation that you can’t be there for everybody all the time.
On The Final Pieces, Navvy has invited her rapidly swelling fanbase to join her on a journey down the uneven road to emotional independence. Working with longtime collaborator Wells* alongside Starsmith (Jess Glynne, Ellie Goulding), Sam de Jong (Lennon Stella, Maisie Peters) and Martin Sjølie (Sigrid, Aurora), Navvy has once again poured her open heart into an EP that is deeply personal, incredibly cathartic and a conclusive closing-of-the-book on that which preceded it.
“I’ve tried my whole life to journal or make diaries and I’ve failed miserably each time,” Navvy admits, “but with these three EPs (The Breakup, No Hard Feelings and The Final Pieces) I’ve got a time capsule of my emotions as I dragged myself through the lowest point in my life. I listen to the first EP now and I think: ‘I don’t remember feeling like this’. But the songs are proof that I did.” The Final Pieces EP, brings the story to some sort of conclusion, with Navvy reframing the previous year’s difficulties in a remarkably philosophical manner. “It was a messed up time in my life,” she acknowledges, “but now I simply feel lucky to have loved so hard that losing it felt so horrible.” The sounds are complemented by videos, artwork and a fully-formed visual identity all of which, just like the music, comes from the mind of this thoroughly hands-on, fiercely independent new artist.
The new EP sees some serious self reflection from Navvy; take new single, ‘Somebody Else’. As a self proclaimed “helper at heart” the conscious recognition of self-preservation on which the single is based, was a really hard thing to hold for the young artist. The track was recorded with no real equipment, just a bag of lolly snakes and a host of friends on hand to scream, “YOU NEED HELP FROM SOMEBODY ELSE” into the mic.
The Final Pieces EP includes a song she and her ex recently wrote together, though this union occurred through sad circumstances. Near the end of 2019 one of Navvy’s oldest friends lost their life in a freak accident, and if the song Navvy wrote about that loss, ‘I Learned To Lose A Friend So Young’, sounds raw, that’s with good reason: she wrote it a week after the accident in a state she accepts was “overwhelmed with grief”.
Writing the song with Wells* and her ex-boyfriend, who’d also been close to Navvy’s departed friend, provided some catharsis. “I said: ‘Let’s all write about it and see if it makes us feel better’,” she recalls. “It did.” It was the first time they’d ever written a song together, so as well as resulting in an incredibly powerful tribute to their friend, the collaboration provided a point of closure on the story that has run through each of Navvy’s EPs.
Rounding out the four track EP are previously released single ‘Pieces’, a song about being ok to be ok again after being so broken from a relationship, and ‘Running In My Sleep’, a lullaby quite simply about dreams of running - also co-written with Thomas Stoneman.
The Final Pieces EP is the last chapter in a story that spans a 12 month period in which Navvy has become a whole new person. “The confidence I had a year ago is different to the confidence I have now,” she recognises. “To begin with I knew I had no choice but to try and figure out my life as I went along. Now I know I can do that. I know more about who I am, and who I want to be.”
Navvy’s instinctive grasp of what makes pop great is even more impressive when you remember that six years ago, when opera was still her jam, she barely even acknowledged pop’s existence. “I love it,” she grins. “I mean, I’m excitable enough anyway, but at the end of each session I'm always like: ‘YOU GUYS! We just made a song! It didn't exist ten hours ago and now it does!’ It freaks me out. It's so cool!” She composes herself, briefly. “It's genuine magic, though, right? I feel like a wizard.”