Australian-Iranian producer/DJ/fantasy author Naz has just released her third single on her own New Eden Records imprint – the smouldering cut ‘Night Rider’ feat. 88 Birds. With support from SiriusXM, Mixmag and more, her unique creative approach is grabbing the attention of both tastemakers and ravers alike.
The fresh talent’s output is fuelled by fantasy fiction and gaming; ‘Music has always created fantasy worlds in my head. So with every New Eden Records release, we [Naz & her co-author John Carnes] write a full chapter of the story it tells, a music video clip illustrates each chapter as the book grows… so the developing storyline is fully immersive.’
With at Drumsheds, Brooklyn Mirage, The Gorge, Piknic Electronik, Creamfields… supporting Tale Of Us and playing her debut sell-out headliner in Sydney Australia, along with releasing on Anjunabeats, Enhanced, and starting her own label, the hype around Naz is real. Here we find out more about her creative process and the plans for New Eden Records…
Hey Naz, thanks for speaking with us! Congrats on your new release ‘Night Rider’ on your New Eden Records. Can you describe the track in a sentence for anyone who’s not heard it yet?
Hi! Thank you so much and thank you for having me! ‘Night Rider’ is dark and moody… it has a driving groove that supports the beautiful and melancholic lyrics and vocals of 88Birds with a drop that hopefully makes you want to ride off into the night, like a night rider!
How did the connection with 88Birds come about? When you started writing the track, did you initially plan for it to have vocals? Or did that just come to you when you were producing it over time?
So 88Birds is a dear friend of mine and I had been following her music for a long time! We finally got to meet in London a couple of years ago and I always knew I wanted to work with her. When I made this instrumental, as I was building the song I could hear her vocals on it straight away so I sent it to her and now, almost two years later, here we are!
You’re doing something really different with your record label, with every track/release also being accompanied by a chapter of a fantasy novel, plus graphics to go alongside on socials. This is such a cool concept, where did the idea come from for it?
Thank you! I really love getting to be creative in different ways and I love appreciating art that really hits all your senses. I wanted to create an experience and a new way that ties in that sort of child-like imagination we all have when we are reading a fantasy novel, listening to music and seeing a movie or an animation. And so it all kind of came together pretty organically wildly enough.
Do you already have an idea where the story is going as a whole? Or do you only figure out the next part of the story when you write the track? If it’s the latter, it must be hard not to get carried away when you’re writing just the one chapter and not want to just keep going!
Yes! So on our website we upload ‘teasers’ of chapters of Book I. We have the plot for the first book already written out and are working through writing all the chapters as we speak, and aiming to have the first book completed by the end of 2024 with my co-author, John Carnes.
You’ve said that you want New Eden to also become an events series both as a VR space and in person – do you see those as being the same events where people can access in real life or online, or would you imagine these as different events?
Absolutely yes. I want the concept to be as accessible as possible, ultimately, it’s created and done for the people. There may be events where it is just an in-person only event, there may be events where it is also accessible at home via VR. There will be times when the events can be re-played through VR as well and we are also looking at more regular ‘radio mix series’ via VR within the worlds.
Would the ultimate goal be for it to be a video game?!
Yes, that is one of our goals and something we are working towards!
It’s been a pretty whirlwind 18 months for you. What would you say have been a key couple of special career moments you’ve had in that time?
It’s been pretty insane in a great way. Launching New Eden last year with the first release was definitely special… it marked a very big moment for me personally where it was like, wow, ok, I’ve gone from planning and ideas to now fruition and we’re really doing this!
What’s next for Naz?
Got some awesome gigs coming up this year, just announced EDC Las Vegas and we are working on a special visual fx debut for that one! We’re also working hard on a pop-up launch to debut New Eden here in NYC where we will have projection mapped visuals, VR station and DJ Sets to sort of debut and introduce to people the product and the music and what we are doing… very excited about that one! Also loads more music which I can’t wait to get out there into the world. And hopefully some sleep in between haha.
Naz ‘Night Rider’ feat. 88Birds is out now on her New Eden Records imprint. Get it HERE. Read the book so far on New Eden Records website.
