Iranian-American singer-songwriter Rahill is the vocalist for American psychedelic rock band Habibi. She has a background as a DJ (jazz, soul, folk and international) and record store employee (which influenced her connection with the songs on this EP Sun Songs).
Rahill says that the selection of treasured songs on the EP reminds her of childhood, and serves as a map of some of her most abiding influences, artists whose singular voices and visions have withstood the test of time. She comments: “These songs encompass this feeling of wonder and curiosity that connects me back to my childhood. We grow so incurious with age, I intentionally chose these songs because they evoke that honesty and playfulness that feels infinite, feels timeless, feels familiar”.
A fine example of this playfulness is her cover of Yoko Ono’s “Growing Pain” (from 1973 album Feeling The Space) – its fizzy backing calls to mind the inventiveness of Serge Gainsbourg and Superorganism. Rahill’s vocal is suitably dreamy on the trippy covers of Arthur Lee’s “I Do Wonder” (from his 1981 self-titled album) and Shuggie Otis’s Aht Uh Mi Hed” (from 1974 album Inspiration Information).
The melodic “Haenim” (from South Korean psych folk artist Kim Jung Mi’s 1973 album Now, written and recorded in a time of political turmoil and censorship) is the standout, with lyrics translated from South Korean into Farsi. Rahill’s version, previewed at designer Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s SS23 show for New York Fashion Week, starts and closes with the innocent sound of a child’s voice and has a warm vocal and instrumentation to emphasise the focus on inner happiness.
Sun Songs is available on limited edition cassette and download, with an album, Flowers At Your Feet, to follow in May 2023.
Label: UNKNOWN
Release Date: 04 NOV 2022
Poetic Justice 