PREMIERE: The HIP Spotlight w/ Cariad Harmon

Listening to Cariad Harmon, it’s hard to believe that the singer-songwriter spent much of her youth galavanting through the streets of London and dancing until the wee hours of the morning to legendary house and techno DJs at West London’s now defunct Club UK. It’s not surprising, however, to learn that after the parties were over, Harmon returned home to secretly throw on a Tracy Chapman or Bob Dylan album and strum her acoustic guitar. Being caught between two worlds is a common echo in Harmon’s life. She grew up with an English mother and an American father and often struggled with feeling like an outsider in both Countries.

These divergent set of influences have served her well, with the proof being her newest single, “I Wanna Be Famous.” A brilliant, concise folk pop number that still manages to have a propulsive beat behind it that gives it the energy and immediacy of the dance hits she grew up listening to. The accompanying video is a beautifully shot and darkly comic series of vignettes that create a powerful narrative about the difficulties of following dreams and the universal hunger for fame and notoriety, so present in our social media-savvy culture.

We met up with Cariad a couple of weeks ago in NYC at the premiere party of the “I Wanna Be Famous” video to discuss what’s important to her as a musician; she was wonderful. Check it out!