Hannah Harding (born 1990 as Hannah Sian Topp), known professionally as Aldous Harding,[1] is an indie folk singer-songwriter from Lyttelton, New Zealand.[2] Harding captivates listeners with her "elastic and shape-shifting voice",[3] her enigmatic lyrics and eccentric performances and video clips.[4] After her "breathtaking self-titled debut"[5] inspired by English folk music[3] that got her recognized, she got a label contract with 4AD, and teamed up with producer John Parish in Wales. With the 2017 release of her "world-storming album"[6]Party,The Guardian called her "one of the most original songwriters around."[2] The "shimmering psychedelic pop"[4] of the following album Designer in 2019 was described as "warm and full of humor",[7] and "simply extraordinary".[8] Two month after the release Metacritic listed Designer as the world's seventh most critically acclaimed album of 2019,[6] by the end of the year on #15, and #8 Most Shared Album of 2019.[9] The single "The Barrel" won her the APRA Silver Scoll Award. In 2022 Warm Chris consolidated the acclaim.[10]
Born in 1990, Harding began life as Hannah Sian Topp. Harding is her stepfather's surname.[2] Her parents, now divorced, are both musicians. Her mother, Canadian folk singer Lorina Harding, bought her a guitar when she was seven or eight, "and my stepfather at the time owned a guitar shop and music was everywhere. But I didn't want what they had." She was fearful, "kind of sad" and "certainly troubled", she said,[11] and thought about becoming a vet.[12] But singing was natural to her.[5] She made her recording debut at 13 singing with her mother, "Exactly What to Say", a song they wrote together about the mother/daughter relationship.[13][14] At Logan Park High School in Dunedin[15] she started singing together with her friend Nadia Reid and attended music class. She was 15 when she wrote her first song and "realised I quite like to write songs".[5] After high school, she travelled through Europe, the UK, and Canada "in a boozy haze".[3]
4AD announced Harding as a new signing in early 2017 just prior to the release of her second studio album, Party.[21]Party was nominated for IMPALA's European Album of the Year Award.[22] The song "The Barrel", from her third studio album Designer, won the 2019 APRA Silver Scroll award.[23][24] In 2022, she released her fourth studio album, Warm Chris. It became her first number one album in her home country, and also featured two of her first charting singles there, with "Tick Tock" peaking at No. 31, and "Ennui" peaking at No. 40 on the New Zealand Hot Singles Chart.
↑A live performance of their duet was recorded at a bar in Wellington in 2009 when she was 19. See recording on YouTube.
↑"Aldous Harding". AudioCulture (NZ). 21 July 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2025.
↑Sophie Kemp (25 March 2022). "Aldous Harding – Warm Chris". Pitchfork. This part of the country is probably the most at home I feel anywhere.
↑"Aldous Harding on "Designer". Decoding an Enigma". Under the Radar. Interviewed by Celine Teo-Blockey. 29 April 2019. Harding concedes that there is something romantic about a small port town but also offers a sobering take: "There are a lot of drugs and alcohol. It's sort of where sometimes it feels like that's where creative types go to die.
↑LP released and distributed together with Flying Out, the record shop in Christchurch (Auckland), which owns the Flying Nun label, the New South Wales label Spunk, and Woo Me (WOOMECD010), the latter releasing the album on CD in Europe. First repressing on July 25, 2014. See Aldous Harding at Discogs (list of releases).
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