NYC's LANA NAUPHAL HAS LOVE-INDUCED HALLUCINATIONS IN "IS IT RAINING IN CALIFORNIA?"

NYC-based singer-songwriter Lana Nauphal has unveiled “Is It Raining In California?” - the latest single and video from her forthcoming debut LP Wildland, produced by Tim Bidwell (Lucy Rose, Kate Walsh), set for release on May 24th. “On this vibrant single that fits somewhere in the world of Ingrid Michaelson and Iron & Wine, Nauphal channels her love for sweeping instrumentation and pure songwriting bliss,” said Chorus.fm in their premiere.

“I wrote two songs about the rain, one very stormy summer spent in Washington, D.C,” Nauphal told Chorus.fm. “It gets so hot and humid, and the pressure builds and builds and builds until it breaks into these raging storms; they’re hard not to write about, especially when they mirror your state of mind…‘Is It Raining in California?’ is about the messy middle part of getting over someone, when you’re still yearning for them but don’t want to be, and you’re mad at yourself for feeling what you feel but you just can’t help it. So you ask if it’s raining where they are, however unlikely that may be, in the hopes that you might be sharing something still.” In the music video, Nauphal is at band practice, doing her best to keep her lost love out of her mind. “The cherry on top - it started storming halfway through the shoot,” she recalls.

“Is It Raining In California?” follows lead single and video, “Oh He Oh My.” “Driven by sprightly acoustic guitar strums and bright drums – all of which surround and support Nauphal’s rich and radiant voice – ‘Oh He Oh My’ proves an instantly irresistible introduction to the New York City-based singer/songwriter,” noted Atwood Magazine in their premiere. “Evoking beloved artist[s] like Ingrid Michaelson and She & Him (the duo led by Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward), Lana Nauphal is, intentionally or not, filling a much-needed gap in the current folk-pop space. Her first release is warm, inviting, and effortlessly catchy; if ‘Oh He Oh My’ proves something of a standard, then we’ll surely be falling for the entirety of Wildland in no time at all.”

LISTEN // WATCH: “OH HE OH MY”

Wildland has a lot to do with falling in love for the first time– with a person, a group of friends, a way of living and being and creating, with oneself. Navigating a maze of Lebanese, American, British, and French identities, Nauphal first found solid ground at age 13, when she discovered 60s- and 70s-era folk. Before long, she got her first guitar, and wrote her first song: she's been rooted ever since - though the decision to pursue music as a career came later. As most stories of a soul's unfolding into purpose begin, it began with falling in love.

"Pursuing pre-law at Georgetown University, I met a truth-teller in the form of a boy. A musician himself, he picked up on what was circling, unrelenting, in my periphery, and confronted me with it: my undeniable call to music,” she explains. “I hadn’t realized how buried it had become— and it was his reverence of my capabilities that finally allowed me to dig it up, dust it off, and claim it as my own. I fell in with him, and his raucous band of friends, and we were ridiculously happy— sleepless, singing, painting on the walls,” she adds. “They brought to life a wildness in me.”

And then, as it does— everything unraveled. The relationship ended, the band broke apart, and Nauphal was left alone with the pieces: pieces of a life she now knew she needed to live, music she knew she needed to make. "This time, it was up to me. Piece by piece, I built myself up," she recalls. "This album, Wildland, was my glue."

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