The Story
Born Hannah Sian Topp, she performs as Aldous Harding — taking her stage surname from her mother, Lorina Harding, a Canadian-born folk and blues singer-songwriter who settled in New Zealand. Aldous made her recording debut at 13, co-writing a song on one of her mother's albums.
Party (2017) won the Taite Music Prize for Album of the Year, and 'The Barrel,' from 2019's Designer, won the APRA Silver Scroll Award for song of the year — two of New Zealand's most prestigious music honors within about a year of each other.
Her videos, often co-directed with Martin Sagadin, are built as unsettling, theatrical one-take performances — 'The Barrel' has Harding alone on camera in eccentric costume through an entire song-and-dance routine; 'Zoo Eyes' follows her across a fog-covered mountain range flanked by a ghost and a monster.
Widely described as having an elastic, shape-shifting voice, Harding continues to record and tour internationally, releasing Train on the Island in 2026.
