(January 26, 2021) I had a certain idea when “W.A.S.T.Q.T (Words And Sounds To Quarantine To),” the title of singer/songwriter’s Nialand new single, flashed across my laptop’s screen at the start of the art video. The video featured the singer sitting, standing and walking around a bed. The song itself sported a sensual vibe with atmospheric keyboards and the fusion of elements of trap with the 808 percussion and jazz infused piano fingering that a romantic vibe. The first shock to my expectations came when Nialand began by defining the word “perspective.”
(January 26, 2021) I had a certain idea when “W.A.S.T.Q.T (Words And Sounds To Quarantine To),” the title of singer/songwriter’s Nialand new single, flashed across my laptop’s screen at the start of the art video. The video featured the singer sitting, standing and walking around a bed. The song itself sported a sensual vibe with atmospheric keyboards and the fusion of elements of trap with the 808 percussion and jazz infused piano fingering that a romantic vibe. The first shock to my expectations came when Nialand began by defining the word “perspective.”
Then she wrapped her lovely voice around the lyrics, and she swept my expectations totally off the table. And I’m glad that she did. Those lyrics flipped the script from a visual and instrumental setup that had me thinking this was a cut about two folks making the best of their COVID imposed time together to a song that explores how an individual confronts and addresses being disconnected from a world that is falling apart.
Soon, images from the year 2020 flash across the screen: empty classrooms, streets filled with protesters and the faces of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Kobe Bryant. The room and the bed become a refuge for someone trying to avoid a dystopia of seen and unseen dangers. The room also becomes a cell that separates Nialand from human connections – and the inspiration that comes from interacting with the world. On top of that, the pandemic caused live performances, the life blood for an indie artist like Nialand, to dry up.
Those conflicting emotions resulting from her tenuous situation became the source material for W.A.S.T.Q.T., the song and video: “I couldn't really see what was next and I didn't know what was happening. I had a lot of emotions and feelings and thoughts that I believe that we all have had at some point during this time. Having to deal with those things personally led me towriting my feelings out in song. There wasn't anywhere that I could go, there was nothing that I could do except be present with my feelings, so I would just sit and write. Once I embraced those feelings, the words and songs flowed out in only a few days,and from there, I created and shot the visuals to go with it…”
Check out the video for “W.A.S.T.Q.T” here.
By Howard Dukes
Nialand
“W.A.S.T.Q.T (Words And Sounds To Quarantine To)"