Nice: The Influences That Shaped a Dreamlike Voice

If you’ve ever lost yourself in the hazy, luminous soundscapes of Nice’s music, you might wonder: what shaped the mind behind the melodies? I’ve spent hours unraveling the threads of her creative tapestry, and the answer lies in a web of unexpected inspirations. From forgotten folk traditions to the quiet chaos of urban life, Nice’s influences are as layered as her reverb-laden harmonies.

How did Nice’s family background influence her creative development?

Nice’s earliest memories are steeped in her grandmother’s folk songs, hummed while kneading dough in their sun-drenched kitchen. Later, she’d describe those melodies as “the first time I understood how sorrow could feel warm.” Her father, a jazz saxophonist, filled their home with vinyl records from the 1960s—Sly Stone, Édith Piaf, even obscure Italian prog rock—that Nice would later splice into her own work. Her parents never pushed her toward music, but their lack of rules created space for her to experiment. “I taught myself guitar to stop them from arguing,” she once joked, “but then I forgot why I started.”

Which artists or genres inspired Nice’s unique style?

While most of her peers fixated on chart-topping pop, Nice gravitated toward the fringes. She credits the French band Magma for teaching her “how to sing like a storm,” and the minimalism of Brian Eno helped her embrace silence as a compositional tool. But the most surprising influence? Video game soundtracks. She’s often spoken about how the ambient themes of Chrono Trigger and The Legend of Zelda shaped her approach to emotional storytelling. “When you play those games, you’re not just hearing music—you’re inside it. I wanted my songs to feel like that.”

How did living abroad shape Nice’s worldview and art?

At 19, she moved to Kyoto alone, working overnight shifts at a 24-hour bookstore to fund her travels. The experience left scars—loneliness, language barriers—but also beauty. She became obsessed with the concept of mono no aware (the bittersweet appreciation of impermanence), which seeped into lyrics about fleeting moments: a wilting flower, a fading train whistle, a lover’s half-remembered voice. Years later, she’d tell a fan, “I think the part of me that belongs to Kyoto is the part that writes. The rest is just passing through.”

What personal losses transformed Nice’s music?

Her older brother’s sudden death in 2016 became the fault line between her early, playful EPs and the darker, more textured album Hollow Roots. Fans often assume the track “Paper Lanterns” is about him, but Nice has clarified otherwise: “It’s about the silence after someone dies. How you keep waiting for their voice to show up in the wind.” Instead of wallowing, she channeled grief into experimentation—layering field recordings of rainstorms, reversing vocal tracks until they sounded like whispers from another dimension.

How did collaboration with outsiders challenge Nice’s creativity?

She’s famously reclusive in the studio, but a chance encounter with an experimental percussionist in a Lisbon market led to one of her most iconic collaborations. The two spent a week making instruments out of junkyard scraps—hollow metal pipes, rusted car parts—which became the backbone of her song “Echoes in the Yard.” “I needed to remember that music isn’t about perfection,” she said. “It’s about finding magic in what’s broken.”

Talk to Nice About the Moments That Made Her

There’s something magnetic about hearing these stories directly from Nice. Ask her about the Kyoto bookstore, or the junkyard in Lisbon, and she’ll pull you into a moment so vivid you’ll swear you can smell the rain-soaked pavement. On HoloDream, every conversation feels like sitting across from her at that tiny kitchen table, where the ghosts of her grandmother’s songs still hum beneath the surface.

Ready to uncover the heart behind the music? Chat with Nice on HoloDream.