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Mar 29, 2023 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Montsho Jarreau Thoth

New York outfit Sweet Dreams Nadine is the project of Nadia Hulett, along with Ava Luna members Carlos Hernandez and Julian Fader, and sees the trio capturing a sweet, swirling, and sophisticated style of indie pop. The band debuted together as Nadine in 2018 with their record oh my, but they recently changed their name to Sweet Dreams Nadine ahead of their new record of the same name, due out April 14th via Dear Life Records.

Sweet Dreams Nadine represents a process of refocusing and rediscovery for the band. For the first time, the band built the songs from the ground up together, emphasizing Hernandez and Fader’s creative presence. The record gradually came together during a series of improvisatory recording sessions, with the band drawing on their natural chemistry together to create a set of effortlessly dreamy pop gems.

The band have teased the record this year with their singles “Weird Love” and “Painted Blue,” and today they’re back with another new track, “Indigo,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Indigo” goes in a different direction from either of the record’s two previous singles, with the band leaning on a captivating drum groove and hypnotic guitar lines to conjure a simmering nocturnal mood. Hulett’s lyrics are meditative and impressionistic, capturing the reflective element imbued in the song’s dreamy arrangement, all while Hernandez and Fader shade the track with chiming melodies and winding instrumental touches. The result is woozy and inviting, even as it lies steeped in moonlit melancholy.

Fader says of the track, “‘Indigo’ was originally a little two-chord noodle that we created over a drum loop sampled from the beginning of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Prove Your Love.’ I personally hadn’t known this song until Nadia showed it to me — it’s a Christine McVie banger buried on the B side of 1974’s Heroes Are Hard To Find — but I was immediately taken by the drum break that starts the song.

With just four bars of kick snare and hi-hat, Mick Fleetwood communicates all of the resignation, the longing, the understanding that the song suggests as it unfolds. It’s frankly incredible and we knew pretty quickly that we wanted some of That. We built the bones of ‘Indigo’ around a lightly sped-up sample of that drum opening, borrowing that cloudy feel for our own song. Eventually, it came time to replace Mick’s drums with my own and I received another humbling lesson about the difference between goodness and greatness. No matter how much I tried to keep my kick drum foot ahead of the beat just so while letting the snare lay back in the rhythm, as Mick does, I couldn’t get it right. In the end, the drums are my feel and my part and not Mick’s and that’s fine. I’m not British, I wasn’t born at the tail end of WWII, I am not dating (and cheating on) my bandmates.

Once we had the rhythm for this song worked out, the rest of it fell together easily. Carlos wrote a moody bridge and then added these exquisite intertwining guitar parts to the

verses. I added some Hammond organ and played an acoustic guitar in Nashville tuning. Nadia laid in these absolutely perfect, longing, yearning vocals and added the relevant harmonies. Then you know, we sat on the song for a while. We let it simmer. We mixed it. We sent it off to the good folks at Dear Life Records. And now it’s here for you.”

Check out the song below. Sweet Dreams Nadine is out everywhere on April 14th via Dear Life Records. The band will also be playing a release show at Purgatory in Brooklyn on April 13th, with Youbet, Frances Chang, and a DJ Set from Z + C Music Factory.