photo credit: Pauline Darley, and artwork - hi-res here
Today, the French artist November Ultra announces her debut North American tour, after having shared her debut album Bedroom Walls with the world via Republic Records HERE. Nova’s 10-city tour will start on June 15th in Vancouver and will go through the West Coast, over to Chicago to the East Coast, and end at Toronto’s The Drake Underground.
Earlier this month, she won the “Best New Female” Award at Les Victoires De La Musique (aka French GRAMMYS), where she performed her new track “Novembre” live and had the audience grab for tissues by giving the most heartfelt and funny award acceptance speech.
November Ultra makes music that feels like you’ve fallen into someone’s diary. Extremely intimate, it welcomes you in, offers you a seat and puts its arms around you to share its stories.
Music – and singing, specifically – has always been a source of happiness and peace for Nova. She began singing when she was a young child and immediately fell in love with the way it made her feel. “There’s a video of me where I’m yelling that I love to sing,” she explains. “My dad’s coming home and just wants some peace and he’s like, “We can sing tomorrow”. I’m like, ”I don’t want to sing tomorrow – I want to sing today until tomorrow.”
She is, as she acknowledges herself, an obsessive person – a trait she shares with her Spanish grandfather, Ramón. It was him who kickstarted her love of singing, teaching her first song – a Spanish song from the copla genre – when she was three years old. He introduced her to musicals from the ‘60s, like The Sound Of Music, which she would beg to watch again as soon as it had finished, which have gone on to influence the theatrical element of her own songs. Ramón’s enthusiasm, passion and knowledge have been “so instrumental and so important” to every aspect of November’s work.
On “Soft & Tender”, Nova asks: “Is that your morning voice? I really love your morning voice.” “I recorded the second verse on a Sunday morning so that really is my morning voice,” she laughs. “You can see that it’s not the same texture in vocals [as before], but that’s what I like – I’m embracing the story of how I made that song.”
These little moments and characters that appear also belie the musician’s love of language. Before she was able to focus on music full-time, November worked in audiovisual subtitling, in which she has a master’s degree, and growing up with Spanish and Portuguese parents in France meant she has spoken three languages since the age of six. Bedroom Walls itself features a trio of tongues – English, French and Spanish, each of which symbolize something different.
As a singer-songwriter, she divides her time between recording studios and her DIY bedroom-studio, working for others as a topliner/songwriter (Jaden Smith, Kungs, Barbara Pravi) while recording, exploring and producing her own songs on Ableton. November Ultra went viral on TikTok when Camila Cabello posted a video on TikTok using the song ‘’Come into my arms’’ and ABBA’s Benny Andersson reacting to Nova’s version of “The Winner Takes It All”.
November Ultra North American Tour:
Thu 6.15 - Vancouver, CAN @ Biltmore Cabaret
Fri 6.16 - Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
Sat 6.17 - Portland, Or @ Polaris Hall
Mon 6.19 - San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
Tue 6.20 - Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
Fri 6.23 - Chicago, IL @ Schubas Tavern
Mon 6.26 - Washington, DC @ Songbyrd Music House
Tue 6.27 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Café Live
Wed 6.28 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Fri 6.30 - Toronto, CAN @ The Drake Underground | 
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