Perhaps best exemplified by the album cover, Rahill’s debut solo LP Flowers At Your Feet is a love letter to her upbringing. It features a Polaroid of herself as a child; Her head wrapped in a towel and a gold charm around her neck, she looks longingly off into the distance. Not only does her gaze represents the exciting future laid before her — as one of the founding members of indie rock four-piece Habibi, Rahill has traveled around the world and made a career out of music — but her necklace signals the importance of family.
Like music, passed-down charms preserve stories and act as a physical embodiment of love. “My grandma gifted me that necklace on my first trip to Iran when I was a year old,” Rahill says in a statement. “She’s someone who’s been ever present in life, and since her passing last year the value and appreciation of the charms have only deepened.”
Like her album cover, Flowers At Your Feet is filled with snapshots of Rahill’s life and is laced with sentimentality. The 14-track album samples field recordings, audio from her family’s home movies, and even audio of her late aunt singing in Farsi. With songs like “I Smile For E” and the Beck collaboration “Fables,” which came about when they formed a friendship after a chance encounter at a party, Rahill offers up a batch of jazzy, comforting, and nostalgic tracks.
Ahead of the release of Flowers At Your Feet, and to celebrate the newly released, breezy track “Bended Light,” Rahill sits down with Uproxx to talk poetry, Toni Braxton, and a secret talent for sports in our latest Q&A.
What are four words you would use to describe your music?
Familiar, dreamy, whimsical, evolving.
It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?
I want it to feel timeless, and to inspire people to reflect on sweet memories, the same way old albums do for me. Like revisiting an old friend, that feeling of familiarity, it’s personal, it’s meaningful, it brings you back with nostalgia, and is also a refuge that can pull you out from time and head spaces that occupy.
What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?
I don’t think I’ve played it yet.
Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?
Forrough Farrokhzad, she was an Iranian poet that died young. Her work is honest and pure, she never embellished the words for the sake of poetry, they just had a way of staying with you and hitting so hard, so impactful. I admire that plain language, that is also captivating and beautiful. Her poems feel like she’s reading to you from a page out of her diary. I love that.
Where did you eat the best meal of your life?
At my grandmother’s house in Shiraz. Kalam Polo.
What album do you know every word to?
There are many, Love’s Forever Changes is one that comes to mind.
What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?
ESG and Roy Ayers were amazing.
What is the best outfit for performing and why?
Monochrome white or black, because I feel most comfortable when I’m clothed in one of the two.
Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?
Use to be old footballer Roy Keane but then he deleted his IG, no one has filled his shoes for me yet.
What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?
So many! Two that come to mind are: “Goin Nowhere” by The Byrds and “Who Does She Hope To Be” by Sonny Sharrock.
What’s the last thing you Googled?
“Stretches for neck.”
What album makes for the perfect gift?
Gotta know the person you shopping for, but I guess a general great album would be Songs In The Key Of Life by Stevie Wonder.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?
An old airstream trailer in Birmingham, Alabama clad with old Star Wars and Sesame Street memorabilia.
What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?
I have none.
What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?
If there’s an oldies channel, I’m listening. If Toni Braxton is playing, I’m listening.
What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?
Everything my parents have ever done and continue to do for me. Indebted.
What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?
Keep staying true to yourself and follow your intuition because the right people will show up for you, it just takes time.
What’s the last show you went to?
Sudan Archives in a park in LA.
What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?
Moonstruck.
What’s one of your hidden talents?
I can ball. Soccer, basketball, and tennis.
Flowers At Your Feet is out 5/12 via Big Dada. Find more information here.