Shida Shahabi – First Light at Hand
There’s a word that composer, producer and artist Shida Shahabi returns to when discussing her forthcoming third album First Light at Hand, set for release on the 5th March 2027 via Still Light. Driven by pure curiosity, Shahabi says, its spirit is distinctly, definitively “playful.” That doesn’t apply exclusively to First Light at Hand, nor, perhaps, is it the first word one associates with its distinguished predecessors.
“I needed to feel free and start from a clean slate,” she explains from her Stockholm studio, “to develop a side of myself I’ve tapped into before but not in a concentrated form. I wanted to let that side of me have fun. There’s a feeling that comes with establishing new methods that can pitch you between uncertainty and complete liberation, bringing a thrilling sense of growth. So, I went where I felt more uncomfortable, where I didn’t always know where things were heading, where I could be surprised. For me, that’s a lot of what art is about, and it’s a luxury I love in music.”
Co-produced with Hampus Norén, a frequent collaborator and member of her live band, the album’s lead single is the mesmeric ‘Wreath,’ featuring PJ Harvey.
They first crossed paths in 2024 when Shahabi performed at an event in London’s Gunnersbury Park curated by the two-time Mercury Prize winner. Reuniting soon afterwards, their mutual admiration quickly evolved into a mutual interest in collaboration.
“I was already working on the song’s production,” Shahabi recalls, “and it all came about organically. It was wonderful to collaborate with someone whose relationship to writing and words comes so naturally, and with an artist whose musical world I love. One reason I wanted to work with her is I’ve sometimes found the power of words intimidating. She had me write down ideas but not overthink, and I saw a pattern emerge. We talked about how things physically appear, develop and bloom, then disintegrate and die, only to reappear, like energy transforming, and ‘re-exist’. Polly did something beautiful with that.”
This theme is one which Shahabi, a keen gardener, often revisits, colouring her choice of song titles across the album which address different states and characters of light. “This was a thought that often came up: the strange ways light travels and creates biological life, how it directs the natural cycle.” Indeed, one crucial line to emerge in ‘Wreath’ might as well be the album’s rallying cry. Punctuating cryptic, pastoral lyrics of “fire, air, water, stone”, Harvey intones advice for life from behind a sometimes flickering, increasingly colossal wall of synths: “Just flow through/ Where the stream hums the tune”.
“When Shida first sent me the piece of music that became ‘Wreath’ I was immediately drawn to its deep, earthy weight, and the way it slowly evolved and transformed. It felt like a living organism. I knew Shida wanted the piece to have words, something that she doesn’t often sense, so I had the feeling that she was the one who knew best what the song needed to say. I asked her to write for me a page of freeform words inspired by the music. I told her the words could be as free as she liked, and didn’t even have to make sense. I used her words as the basis of the song, adding things here and there, and editing it down,” adds Harvey.
She continues, “We discussed the need for simplicity and for a cyclical nature – a sense of life and death, of beginning and ending, as we see in the living world around us. I kept my melodic line very simple and repetitive to marry with the slow changes in the music. It took us a while to figure out what needed to happen at the end of the piece, but I love how Shida has looped my vocal and used it as she would an instrument sample. I’m proud to be a part of this unique and mesmerising new album.”
As striking and singular as ‘Wreath’ is, ‘First Light at Hand’ is about far more. “I love organic sounds,” Shahabi elaborates, “but this has more arrangements, some processed, others raw one-takes, and more synthetic landscapes. It places greater emphasis on tape machines and modulation.”
Shahabi released her critically acclaimed debut album Homes in 2018 and has since then continued releasing celebrated works like Shifts (2019) and Living Circle (2023). She also writes music for performing arts and film, and recently scored Thibault Emin’s feature film ‘Else’ which premiered at TIFF in 2024; Teresa Sutherland’s feature film ‘Lovely, Dark and Deep’ which premiered in 2023; and Charlotte Le Bon’s renowned debut feature film ‘Falcon Lake’ (2022).
In 2023, she collaborated with Icelandic choreographer Halla Ólafsdóttir on her dance piece ‘Sylph’. The score for the piece was self-released on her own label Still Light. She has toured all around Europe, including supporting artists such as PJ Harvey, Colin Stetson, and A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and performed at festivals and venues such as BRDCST, Semibreve, the Barbican, Elbphilharmonie and Silent Green.
#shidash