Today marks the return of Scottish singer-songwriter, Nina Nesbitt with the release of the sun-soaked, gloriously hazy new single "Summer Fling". A confident statement of intent, all nostalgic '80s synths and knowing nods to ABBA, the song was written and produced solely by Nina, whose half-Scottish, half-Swedish heritage feels apt for an artist uniquely able to balance bright alt-pop with confessional singer-songwriter lyrics.
'"Summer Fling' is inspired by wanting to escape," she says of the song, which was created in lockdown. "I always caught myself dreaming of going back to Sweden to spend the summer there, so it's a fantasy of that world. Where there's no stress."
Listen to "Summer Fling" below.
Directed by Wolf James (Bastille, Clean Bandit), the accompanying video for "Summer Fling" is Nina's biggest and most ambitious to date. It's a dreamlike imagining of midsummer love, which features dazzling choreography from Nina as she uses her background as a gymnast to deliver a stunning performance from an aerial hoop. Its visual aesthetic is inspired by her Swedish roots and feels intriguingly out-of-time: on one hand modern and neon, on the other timelessly vintage, but all the while fantastical and hallucinogenic.
Watch the official music video for "Summer Fling" HERE.
The arrival of "Summer Fling" comes as Nina is again reaching a huge worldwide audience, having just launched an international campaign with Tiffany for their new Rose Gold perfume. It features her modernist take on The Beatles' classic "All You Need Is Love."
Nina Nesbitt's critically lauded 2019 US debut album, 'The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change', raised the bar for the singer, songwriter and producer as she emerged from a rising prospect to an artist with a global reputation. The album amassed a staggering half-a-billion streams (including 100 million+ for the Radio 1 playlisted "The Best You Had"), and propelled her into Spotify's top 500 artists in the world. Earning acclaim from the likes of Marie Claire who praised the album for its "Joyful, dance-y pop with wrenching indie ballads, displaying a newfound maturity in the...songwriting," and Billboard Magazine who hailed it "an iridescent work of pop mastery, showcasing Nesbitt's proficiency as a songwriter, vocalist and producer," with V Magazine proclaiming, "'The Sun Will Come Up'... captures the precise moment an artist finds herself blossoming into a full-blown pop star."
Nina also shared an ongoing mutual appreciation with Taylor Swift, who namechecked Nina as one of the "newer faces in our music industry whose work I absolutely love" during her Woman of the Decade Award acceptance speech at Billboard's Women in Music Event. Taylor had previously twice highlighted Nina on her personally curated playlists. Her following on social media also exploded, gaining over 620,000 followers at TikTok during lockdown for her mix of home-filmed performances, musical experiments, and other engaging content.
She now follows that sensational career rebirth with a brand new single, "Summer Fling", that sets her up for even greater things.
After debuting in 2014 with the acoustic-leaning album 'Peroxide', Nina found herself at a crossroads in 2017. The dilemma was simple: focus on her own career as an artist, or continuing writing songs for other artists? ("Is It Really Me You're Missing" was, at one point, destined for Rihanna). The success of the self-produced "The Moments I'm Missing" gave her the confidence to keep those songs for herself, which she capitalized upon with "The Best You Had". The campaign for 'The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change' was a huge success and rich reward for a project Nina crafted with full creative control and that was written primarily in her bedroom. It was later expanded into a deluxe edition, '...& The Flowers Will Fall'.
The campaign also opened up countless collaborations, from dance acts Deacon ("Long Run"), NOTD ("Cry Dancing") and R3HAB ("Family Values"), to singer-songwriters Sasha Sloan and Charlotte Lawrence ("Psychopath") and global stars Jonas Blue ("Desperate") and Sigala ("Somebody"). A particular highlight was teaming up with Ranji and WHITENO1SE. The duo had remixed "The Moments I'm Missing" and dropped it at Ultra Music Festival, the reaction being so big that Nina subsequently joined them at a show in Mexico City in front of 20,000 people. Nina started 2021 by performing as a special guest at Liam Payne's livestream event 'LP Show Act 4'. In addition to her own set, she also joined him for the duet "For You".
Building on the hard-won success of 'The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change', "Summer Fling" is the first taste of more new music to come.
"Summer Fling" is out now.
