Nick Hakim Shares the Spectral Double Single “Real Here Now” and “Water”

Nick Hakim has been circling a bigger breakthrough for a while, and these two new songs make the case with unusual force. The Queens-based musician has spent the last few years turning up in unexpected and often flattering company, with credits on albums by Adrianne Lenker, Pink Siifu, Eddie Chacon, Lil Yachty, and Zooey Celeste. His own catalog has only deepened with age. Still, there is something especially striking about the way he sounds here, on a pair of singles that feel like a serious arrival rather than another promising step.

“Real Here Now” and “Water” place Hakim in conversation with a lineage of great soul singers, but they do it without sanding down his oddness. “Real Here Now” drifts through grief and memory on a bed of glassy piano and a tight backbeat, while Hakim’s voice trembles just above the track, moving from near-whispers into sharper, more volcanic phrases that call Michael Jackson to mind. The keyboard flourishes carry a Boyz II Men grandeur, though the production itself feels far more uncanny than nostalgic. “Water” is even sparer: mostly Hakim, a piano, and a vast, unguarded ache. In that setting, he sounds less like he is reaching for a reference point than like he is singing from inside a private ruin. The effect is eerie, intimate, and hard to shake.

That combination of restraint and emotional scale is what makes both tracks hit so hard. They also hint at a larger project that could push Hakim further into the center of the conversation, which is where his music has seemed destined to land for some time. For now, these songs do the work themselves.

“Real Here Now” and “Water” are out now on Earseed/Stem.