Nat Harvie - New Virginity

On New Virginity, Nat Harvie longs for love – but “not reaching so much for the lover or the friend, as through my self,” says Harvie . Each of the album’s eight songs is a story, dreaming of an imagined future as the last person alive on Earth, to a mirror version of childhood, the possibilities of gender in a ruined Eden, and the inevitable loss that comes from loving. New Virginity is a substantial departure for the young/veteran Harvie’s music: the continual evolution of a vital voice, armed with the sonic assuredness to amply express the wonderment, and trepidation, of finding one’s way in the world – making mistakes, uncovering your character, grappling with ambition, desire, and neurosis – all happening together at once.

“There’s a magical realism to saying ‘I am a virgin again’ – it becomes true – this is the logic of the album: that one can reset their relationship to experience, to the sensual,” Nat says.

Simultaneously elegant and sardonic, Harvie’s storytelling builds from nascent melodies into gleaming tomes of Queer Americana – a dazzling arc of personal evolution, shared experience, and sonic accrual shot across the album. A musical expression of memory, a restless vocalization of existential discovery, Nat asks the questions: “What kind of person would I be if I never had to define anything about myself? How tough would it be if I had no claims to make about who or what I am?” To the listener, this process of discovery is distilled in a captivating song cycle that is both highly intimate and universally relatable.

Recording began in the lonesome summer of 2020 in a makeshift way behind a friend’s shoemaking studio in Duluth, Minnesota, while Nat lived out lockdown at home with family. A nearly complete record sat inert for some time after the passing of their collaborator and friend, producer Eric Littman, in summer 2021 – “As long as I didn’t finish it I was still active collaborators with Eric” – until Nat began working with fellow Minneapolis artist Andrew Broder, and Nat’s songs quickly flourished again in summer 2022. While Broder began tracking grand piano and sourcing strings from friends in the Netherlands, contributions from experimental saxophonist Cole Pulice, Lillie West of indie pop outfit Lala Lala, and Alan Sparhawk of Duluth slow music heroes Low further enriched the texture of the album taking form.” Harvie’s collaboration with Sparhawk is deeply rooted, including the release of Harvie’s 2022 LP Married In Song on Low’s Chairkickers Union label, and Harvie taking on co-production, mixing, and engineering duties on Sparhawk’s upcoming 2024 solo record, White Roses, My God. (continue reading full bio on DISCO)