Oh boy you’re in for a treat with this album! I only found Niina Soleil a month or two ago and she’s got so much to offer. We’re looking at the first half of CALIFORNIALAND today.
Welcome To The Dream
My favourite of the new ones was the first, Welcome To The Dream. This is when the party is just getting going. Kick off your shoes, chillax. This is the best place on earth. But is that lady in the middle really human? She’s either on drugs or a robot. Oh no, is it too soon to leave? Even this banging optimisitic opener is tinged with warning signs.
Welcome to the Dream of California!
Come on, swim the seas where I was born-ia!
Kick off your shoes, kick off your blues,
But baby, I should warn ya-
Things ain’t all they seem
Ramblin’
Ramblin’ runs it a close second. It called to mind Stuck in the Middle with You by Stealers Wheel. I love it. It’s a great chuggin’ driving song. Not too slow to open up the V8 on the dark desert highway.
Howdy stranger? Are you lost? Where’s home?
Hop on in, I’ll take you anywhere you need to go
Scoot in the back, I bet there’s room if you squeeze
Go on now, meet the gang, watch your head, mind your knees
The lyrics tell a similarly cautious tale as Welcome to the Dream. It turns out that the lady offering lifts to handsome strangers is perhaps a little beyond her prime. She does a good trade in innuendo with a wink and she still feels twenty-three. But she calls her gang the bad luck club. The ones who fell on hard times, and are trying not to show it. When you’re in with the in crowd, they’re great. But if you slip there’s no safety net.
Say It In My Skirt
This was the first song I heard that had not yet been released as a single, and I loved it immediately. It’s slow and swingy and reminded me of an early Tarantino soundtrack, maybe something from Jackie Brown. It clearly had a big sense of humour but I am still not completely sure what the title means and that’s absolutely fine.
The title is partly a reference to the famous photo where Marilyn Monroe’s skirt is blown about by an air duct. (Turns out the gust was caused up by a train passing underneath.) It was a promo shot for the movie Seven Year Itch. The song itself is playful. The singer is certainly interested in this guy but she is anticipating disappopintment.
Don’t you know ‘bout me? I’m a kinda
Sweet like summer wine kinda girl
Steal you like a crime kinda girl
Consider this is your sign
But you better make it worth my time
Take Me Into The Sunshine
This is a really chill soul vibe. There is a vague drug reference: what’s that on your tongue? Can you give me one? TMITS looks and sounds like the perfect summer single. Fewer words than the previous song, more space. There are moments in all the fun when I feel like it is Niina herself doing the talking:-
I left town on my own
Felt no love at home
Then I heard some music play
From the San Francisco bay
So I hit the road and came to stay
There’s always something exciting about the moment when a musician decides to make a career in music, and maybe this was Niina’s. It sounds so simple the way she tells it. Sometimes they make this decision aged 4 or 5 and never deviate, like Stevie Nicks. Sometimes they’re 15 or 20 and they don’t know how brave they are being when they take that first plunge.
Right On, Hollywood
A simple but effective story about a stripper making it in the neon side of Hollywood, shaking it in her heels. I see this one as a character in a movie, surviving the ordeal only by taking more pills. It’s a dark and slow one, very much a nighttime song.
Snake on down the hills then it’s right on Hollywood
Shake it in your heels, that’s the deal
If you can fake it then you probably should
Life and Times of a Wannabe Rockstar
This one is notably slower and quieter than everything else so far. Taken in the album sequence, it is perfect as the last song on Side A. The notion of sleeping in your denim and staying awake for the sunrise is both captivating and nostalgic. Weren’t we all hoping to do something like that, at least once? I remember sitting on the harbour wall at Majorca with a few mates aged 18 and waiting for the sun to come up. I’m afraid to say I was so tired that I didn’t feel it was worth the wait, but at least we did it. We were there, and I do still remember it decades later.
The blind are leading the blind
But the wind in your hair’s a fairly good sign
We dig in the dark but we know what to find
You were already late to begin
This is not an aspirational song as much as a haunted warning. I don’t think that an up-and-coming rock star is the same thing as a ‘wannabe’ one. The wannabe is the one who is more performative than authentic, more about the fame than the music. There is something hollow about the wannabe rockstar, and this song brings that idea to life.
My Side B review is coming soon… meanwhile you can catch Niina on her website here and you can find her links here and email list here.
Niina Soleil
I spent today’s walk to the office listening to Niina Soleil. I’m not going to try and describe her music. Yes, I am. There’s a certain jazz flavour, some soul. Best of all, there is an enormous sense of humour. This is desert soul-jazz. But I can’t do any better than her own bio.
