Nai Palm - Needle Paw (2LP) - Pink/Black Splatter Vinyl

Nai Palm’s first solo outing, Needle Paw, arrived on October 20, 2017, and it still lands like a quiet miracle. If you know her as the voice and guitarist of Hiatus Kaiyote, you expect cosmic chords and rhythmic shapeshifts. Those are here, but pared to bone and breath. Across these songs she mostly keeps it to voice and guitar, often with layered harmonies that feel hand sewn. The result is intimate in a way that studio wizardry can’t fake, closer to being a few feet from her in a small room than to any glossy soul record.

The record opens its world with confidence, folding originals and carefully chosen covers into a single thread. Her take on Jimi Hendrix’s Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland) is a highlight, done with a choral touch that floats rather than flexes. She is not trying to out sing Hendrix, she is tracing the melody’s tenderness, letting stacked vocals tilt the light around it. The same sensitivity powers the Crossfire, So Into You medley, a smart splice of one of her own songs with the Tamia classic. It plays like a love letter to R&B radio and to her own band’s DNA, and it showcases how she can pivot from airy jazz voicings to pocketed soul phrasing without breaking the spell.

Homebody works as the album’s thesis. Fingerpicked guitar, unhurried cadence, vocals right up against the mic. She lets small details carry the weight, a scraped string, a breath before a high note, the faintest chorus of harmonies tucking in beneath the lead. You get the sense she wanted listeners to hear the grain of the wood and the rustle of the room, not just the song’s blueprint. That choice hits especially hard if you came in through Hiatus Kaiyote’s maximalist side. This is the same writer who helped send Breathing Underwater to a Grammy nomination with her band, yet here she trusts negative space and raw takes.

One of the record’s quiet joys is how it reframes her harmonic language. Without the full Hiatus Kaiyote rhythm section, her chords hang a bit longer, so you can taste the jazz colors and the folk roots. The backing vocals, sometimes just a few notes, sometimes a small choir, act like shifting stained glass. They never show off, they just shape the air. When a cover does appear, it sits neatly alongside her originals, which says a lot about her pen. The influences are audible, but the voice is singular and grounded.

If you collect, the Needle Paw vinyl is worth seeking out. This is the kind of album that blooms on a turntable, that warm midrange pulling her guitar closer and giving the harmonies more room to breathe. Spin it late and you can almost see the dust in the lamplight. It also pairs nicely with Hiatus Kaiyote albums on vinyl if you want to map her writing from band to solo and back again. A good Melbourne record store will know exactly where to file it, though it is easy to buy Nai Palm records online if you are outside Australia. For crate diggers building a soulful corner of their shelves, Nai Palm vinyl sits comfortably next to modern classics and 70s singer songwriter outliers. If you are browsing for vinyl records Australia wide, keep this one in mind before someone else snaps it up.

What lingers after a few spins is the sense of hospitality. She lets you into her process without turning it into a lecture on craft. A guitar figure repeats until it becomes a place, then a melody arrives like a visitor who knows when to step inside and when to leave. Even the covers feel personal, like postcards from artists who helped her find her own weather. The record is patient, humble, and sure of itself, which is a hard mix to pull off.

Needle Paw is not a detour so much as a lens. It shows the core of what makes Nai Palm special, the songwriting and the risk taking, without the fireworks. It also sets up how boldly she would return to band life later on. If you love records that reveal themselves slowly, this is a keeper. And if you came here hunting for Needle Paw vinyl or a reason to buy Nai Palm records online, consider this your nudge. Put it on, let the room go quiet, and listen to a great singer writing her name in lowercase and making it ring.