Hina Releases Debut Album ‘Descending Dreams’
APRA Silver Scroll-nominated songwriter Hina releases her debut album Descending Dreams, led by focus track River To Mouth. Written in her childhood bedroom and recorded over the course of a year, Descending Dreams traces a period of contraction and slow return – an album Hina describes as arriving “like a prophecy.”
“Descending Dreams has become inadvertent documentation to a period where my world became smaller and smaller,” she says. “This album is now the record of that time period. But it’s also slowly becoming the record of my return back to myself… These songs are the rooms I lived in for a long time. I don’t live there anymore, but sometimes I visit.”
Focus track River To Mouth, described by Hina as “sonically triumphant, lyrically disillusioned”, builds from a piano-and-vocal opening into an alt-country crescendo, exploring identity, belonging, and whose stories are rewritten or erased in contemporary Aotearoa.
Recorded at Roundhead Studios with producer Navakatoa Tekela-Pule (Noa Records) and refined alongside James Milne (Lawrence Arabia), the album drew in some of Aotearoa’s most trusted musicans: Dave Khan, Tiare Kelly, Stenn Frances-Deare, Hamish Milne, De Stevens, Finn Scholes, and a string quartet featuring Sandy Niu and Olivia Wilding each lending their hands, ears, and creative instincts to the record. Engineer Paddy Hill expertly mixed the record, giving the final work its shape. Mixed to tape by Hill and mastered by Josh Llewellyn at Downbeat Mastering, the record was completed almost exactly a year to the day after the first studio session.
Descending Dreams will be launched with a special one-off performance at Kāhui St David’s in Tāmaki Makaurau on Thursday 6 August. With limited tickets remaining, the release show offers the first opportunity to experience the album live, with Hina joined by an all-star band featuring: Dave Khan (Marlon Williams, Reb Fountain, The Veils), Fen Ikner (LIPS, Anna Coddington), Hamish Morgan (Marlin’s Dreaming), and Francesca Parussini (Wāhine in Jazz), who will bring the record to life. With support from Tāmaki Makaurau-based singer-songwriter, jazz-inspired folk artist, and co-founder of Wāhine In Jazz, Na’amah. Fans will also have the opportunity to have copies of Descending Dreams signed by Hina following the show – secure your tickets from Under The Radar
Descending Dreams is available now digitally, on vinyl, and on Lume. Secure your copy here.
Hina Descending Dreams Album Release Show
6 August @ Kāhui St David’s, Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland
Purchase Tickets
Photo Credit: Ebony Lamb
