Krrra! Nenda’s Triumphant Homecoming

‘Krrra’ is the noise made by Krampus, the horned-beast of Alpine folklore who punishes naughty children on December 5th by beating them with birch sticks. It’s also the name of Ötztal-raised Nenda Neururer’s debut album, released last month. It’s an appropriate title considering her style - in large part - involves taking Austrian (particularly Tirolean) tropes and traditions, and holding a mirror up to them.

‘I’m talking about tradition and toxic masculinity. And reclaiming Tirolean culture as well. Saying I can also be a Krampus. The whole album is about empowering people who might have been marginalised, or experienced exclusion’ she told me in a wide-ranging interview.

Is Tirol ready to hear her critiques?

Well, the buzz at Saturday’s sold out gig at Treibhaus showed it’s very clear she is beloved here. It felt like a moment of triumph, a personal vindication; the homecoming queen claiming her place on the throne. Tirol is listening. At times it was spine-tingling.

The name of her breakthrough track - Mixed Feelings - is probably the phrase that best sums up her attitude to growing up in Ötztal:

‘The nature is beautiful and I spent my days in the forest until Mum called me back home but me and my sister were the only mixed-race children in the village where we grew up. You are met with a lot of doubt, a lot of people approach you in English, asking which family you belong to. When you say, they don’t believe you and you internalise a lot of that doubt: ‘Why does nobody believe me?’. When it happens three times a week, you start to think you’re not welcome in your home country. In my music I’m trying to work through those feelings’.

When I tell her that some Innsbruck-residing friends showed the Mixed Feelings video to their young mixed-race daughter, which she loved (particularly the image of Nenda and her friends striding down Innsbruck’s streets wearing dirndls) she seems genuinely touched.

‘I love when people tell me that! That’s what I do it for - the little girls, the little people …and the adults! People that don’t usually see themselves represented. The mixed-race thing is always being between two worlds, not really knowing where you belong. It’s so important to see yourself on something. Also, the dirndls are reclaiming a thing that people say we can’t be a part of. Black and mixed-race people are part of this country, we’re part of this culture too. That representation is something I was lacking growing up’.

Currently ‘half living in London, half in Innsbruck’ Nenda is in the process of moving to Vienna after twelve years in the UK.

Her excellent science marks from her schooldays in Telfs led to her starting a Chemistry degree at the University of Innsbruck but within a term, she realised it wasn’t for her. The next move was to go to drama school; ‘I spent my first night in Liverpool. I thought I knew English but I couldn’t understand anything anyone said to me!’. After four years of study (one in Wigan, three in Kent) she spent the next eight years working as an actor, mainly on the London stage.

‘It’s really special to be on stage. That’s what you’re dreaming of when you train so it was great to make those dreams come true’.

Starring in the stage production of Zadie Smith’s celebrated novel ‘White Teeth’ was a particular highlight. Especially as the character she played was based on Smith’s mother; ‘I didn’t know that until her Mum came backstage to tell me! But she loved it, she came every other week to watch’.

After cutting her teeth in a production of Mary Norton’s much-loved children book ‘The Borrowers’, Neururer then starred in such classics as ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Death of a Salesman’, before landing a hefty role in ‘It’s headed straight towards us’, a new play written by legendary British comedians Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer.

Her acting career was going from strength to strength…

‘And then it was Covid. All the theatres were hit hard’.

Corona times necessitated a move from stage to screen with Sky TV’s supernatural crime drama ‘The Rising’ giving Neururer her first experience of being on a big set in 2021; ‘I learned so much from that experience’. Other screen roles since include period drama ‘Belgravia’ and ‘Charlotte Link: Einsame Nacht’ for German TV.

Lockdown also provided an opportunity to pursue her music. Although ‘always making beats on my laptop’ Neururer won 300 pounds in funding to record ‘Mixed Feelings’ in 2020. ‘Then, being a very visual person I wanted to make a video.. I forced all my friends to help me with it, found some sheep, found some goats!.. After it was released, loads of people started messaging me so it obviously resonated. Not just with people of colour, but other people who’ve felt excluded’.

When I ask if she has a preference when it comes to acting, music and writing, it’s clear she doesn’t really see any divisions. ‘I like doing it all and I like that I get to do it all. One feeds the other. I write songs that have characters in and act those characters out through my music. I tell stories. With acting you don’t shape as much, you read someone else’s words. You bring a bit of yourself to the table but in my music it all comes from me’.

Characters, accents, languages… this is Neururer's milieu; ‘when you’re mixed-race, you’re always code switching’.

‘It’s really important to get to know your voice and I love accents, cadences. It’s a passion. I’m glad I’m good at it because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the chance to work as an actor in the UK’.

It also helps with the music. It’s mainly prominent in the switch between London English and Tiroler Deutsch in several of her songs but on ‘Krrra’ it also takes a few unexpected turns. ‘Umbrl’ features several lines in Spanish, while for the second verse of ‘Mountain Goat’, the listener lands ‘in Vienna now, where people start each new day with a frown, in a mood before you wear your dressing gown’ (the Viennese are  famous for being moaners). Neururer then switches to Deutsch in a deep Vienna drawl, an accent inspired by her Grandmother; ‘she was from there.. she would always moan and talk like that!’.

Here, clearly, is an artist who can make you laugh, dance and think at the same time.

‘Humour is a good way to address subjects like racism. If I make you laugh, it’s like, ‘let me think about that’. People are on your side then. I don’t always do it on purpose but I do like making people laugh and entertaining myself. It just comes naturally’.

But for contrast, the album also deals with grief and heartache. Neururer’s ‘wonderful brother figure’ Ben died very suddenly in 2023, which inspired opener ‘Bentro’. Heartstring-pulling breakup song ‘Alone’ is another shining example of her range.

With London increasingly unaffordable, even for someone as busy as Neururer, the move to Vienna is mainly ‘to give the music career a good shot. With acting you can audition via tape so you can actually live anywhere. Acting is a bit of a nomad-life’.

It’ll be fascinating to see where her career takes her next but with so many strings to her bow allied to her outstanding command of English - not to mention her sheer talent, charisma, brains and beauty - it genuinely feels as if Nenda has the potential to become Tirol’s first ever international entertainment star.

‘Are you ready? I’m coming’ she sings on the album’s title track.

Are you?

Krrra is out now.

Follow Nenda on Instagram

Watch Oachkatzlschwoaf: my identity crisis growing up mixed-race in Austria, a film Nenda made for the BBC.

All photos: Leon Barton