Danni Nicholls was born in Bedford, England, raised on American roots music from her Anglo-Indian grandmother’s record collection, and has spent the last decade building a reputation on the global Americana circuit before finally moving to Nashville. “The Wreckage” is the first single from her forthcoming fourth album, Making Moves, due June 26th on Astrorama Records, and it draws directly from the disorientation of that transatlantic leap. Co-written with Kyshona Armstrong and produced by Sarah Peacock, the track features Joshua Grange on electric guitars and pedal steel, Lex Price on bass, Chris Benelli on drums and percussion, and additional keys and synth from Stephen Leiweke. Nicholls has described the song as a premonition she started before the move and finished after, an attempt to untangle the dissociation she experienced when things got dark and she found herself questioning everything.
Danni Nicholls
‘ voice is a warmer version of Miley Cyrus’s. It complements the folk rock sound perfectly. It’s a storyteller’s voice. As it envelopes your surroundings, you feel like nothing else exists but this story. It’s a testament to Danni and the rest of the band’s talent that they achieved that bigger-than-life sound that so many bands aspire to get. It’s hard to stand out when you are treading familiar ground and familiar sonic textures, but these guys just have that secret sauce; the intention behind every note is communicated.
The central metaphor of the song, rising above a wreck and hovering in the space between the end and the beginning, maps cleanly onto what Nicholls was living through. The song opens and closes on the same line: “How did I get here?” It doesn’t resolve so much as arrive at a kind of hard-won stillness, which is exactly the right emotional destination for a song about finding your way back to yourself. With comparisons to Brandi Carlile and Roseanne Cash already following her and a fourth album on the way, “The Wreckage” confirms that Nicholls is operating at the top of her craft.
