ROB MURRAY: I’m speaking with local musician Nurdjana. I want to wish you a happy release day! The first single off your upcoming new EP is out – it’s called “What If I Love You.” What can you tell us about the song?

NURDJANA DE RIJCKE: I inherited all this music from my dad and found this little tape with all these song ideas. There was a little blip of “What If I Love You.” I actually don’t know if that’s what he called it. Of course. I was like, oh my God, this sounds so good, but it wasn’t finished. I was like, I’d better finish this because it got stuck in my head. I kept singing it over and over again. It was like, yeah, I can’t leave this, I have to turn this into a song.

RM: This project and your journey into recording music really began when you started unearthing these tapes and the music of your late father. It’s gone from recording a few things here in Banff to actually going overseas to record.

NDR: Yeah, I went back home. I found this producer; we have really similar tastes. He did a little bit of editing on one of the songs I had recorded a long time ago and really liked what he did. I really wanted to work with this guy. We’re in the middle of pandemic, so I had planned to go back home two years ago and it wasn’t happening. My flights kept being canceled, and I was like, okay, if this is going to happen, hopefully it’ll be this summer (so last summer), then I might as well record with him if he has time. So that’s what we did.

RM: You actually recorded an EP’s worth of music, didn’t you?

NDR: We did six songs. We wanted to do seven, but I had limited time because the kids were still in Canada so I couldn’t stay away too long. We crunched everything into 10 days. The band was only in the studio for one day, so they came in at 10:00 AM and basically laid down all the tracks until like 1:00 AM.

RM: This first single, “What If I Love You”, you can definitely hear the band in there with the horns in the background. I really like this song, by the way. I’m super excited to share with the Mountain FM listeners. What was it like actually hearing it with the full band and fully produced?

NDR: Awesome. Even talking about it right now just makes me smile so much. It’s so cool to work with so many awesome musicians, have them all in one spot, and them all working on my dad’s music. It’s incredibly special and so cool to get a song that’s so rich. It exceeded all my expectations, that’s for sure.

RM: You mentioned you completed this song. How much had your dad done on this song and how much is you, lyrically and musically?

NDR: I think half of the lyrics are my dad’s, and then half of it is mine. There was like one verse or one and a half verses, and then there was something that you could call a chorus, but it was him just noodling on the guitar and then singing all these different things. I was like, is this one song? The producer in Holland, he did a lot with the arrangements as well.

RM: This project to revive the music of your late father – what does your family and the people who knew Rob think?

NDR: They love it, because we would always play together too at all these family gatherings or every wedding. I feel they’re like, finally, she’s doing what she’s supposed to be doing.

RM: “What If I Love You” is available where all fine music is streamed and listened to. When is the full EP coming out?

NDR: May 10th.

 

Filed under: Canmore, Local Music