Local songwriter releases new track

Thames songwriter Nur Peach Lajunen Tal hopes her new single Offbeat will inspire others to “embrace life”, “be true to themselves” and “show their true colours”.
The former Thames High School student told The Profile that Offbeat would be her second single after releasing Feel The Sun, which made her the Waikato regional winner of the Play It Strange Get Connected songwriting competition, in 2016.
“Feel The Sun was my first proper release but I kind of view Offbeat as my first release because it’s my first release in so long,” she said.
“My music has improved and evolved so much since I wrote Feel the Sun when I was 15, so I’m really excited to show the world what I’ve done since then.
Nur, 21, said Offbeat, which was written during her first year of her popular music degree at the University of Auckland in 2019, was released on October 28.
The single was inspired by her personal experiences.
“I have grown up feeling like I’m very different from everyone else and it’s really affected my life,” she said.
“Offbeat is saying to accept and embrace it, show your true colours and if you really want to make any change in this world, you have to do things differently and be true to yourself.”
Nur said she had written more than 200 songs by the time she graduated high school in 2018, and had enjoyed music all her life growing up in Waiomu. “I’ve been singing all my life – according to my parents since I could talk, and I wrote my first proper song when I was five and started playing guitar or piano when I was about nine,” she said.
“Me and my family also went for a trip around the world when I was eight and it was amazing, really eye opening and we performed on the streets in Israel and Paris.”
Nur said the new single, which was produced by Scott Seabright, would also be the lead single for her debut album.
“Offbeat was the song I chose as the first taste of the project,” she said.
“I plan to release a few more tracks on the album as singles in the coming months, before the full album comes out sometime next year.”
Nur said her single could be downloaded on Google Play, Spotify and Apple Music, and she planned to make it available on YouTube, Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
Nur also performed a single release concert on October 28 at The Backroom behind Lotus Realm in Thames and will release another single, Cover To Cover, on November 25.