NIIA Releases New Single “I GET ALONG WITHOUT YOU VERY WELL”
Today, Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist/pianist Niia released the intimate new single, “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” on Candid Records. With a stripped-back, smoky vocal delivery, Niia carries the melancholic spirit of Chet Baker’s 1954 breakup ballad – originally composed by Hoagy Carmichael in 1939, featuring a poem written by Jane Brown Thompson. Listen to “I Get Along Without You Very Well” HERE
Speaking on the classic and her inspiration, Niia says, it’s “A perfect song. Carried by giants. I’ve been there. It felt like time to sing it. I sang it carefully. With love. And a little fear.”
For her take on “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” Niia resisted polish. The song is a quiet breakup classic - melancholic, restrained, emotionally unresolved - and the visual language needed to mirror that restraint. Her voice is similarly bare: soft, unguarded, and close, as if recorded in the aftermath rather than the moment itself. She sings without ornament, letting breath, phrasing, and silence carry the emotional weight.
Stripped of production and performance, the project was conceived as something intimate, raw, and immediate. Niia collaborated with artist and longtime friend Avery Wheless, whose work is rooted in vulnerability, memory, and the psychology of looking. Shot over the course of a few hours in Wheless’s residence, the session unfolded without crew, styling, or staging. Natural light shifted through the space as Wheless followed Niia instinctively—sometimes from a lover’s point of view—capturing a rhythm that moved between nostalgic warmth and present-tense aloneness.
This entire piece was filmed on an old-school camcorder to heighten the sense of nostalgia and emotional residue. No frills, no performance, no distance, no pants - just vocals, melody, and feeling.
“I Get Along Without You Very Well” comes one day ahead of Niia’s US tour kicking off, and continues the emotional arc exploring love, loss, defiance, and heartache of her recently released fifth studio album, V.
A sharp, soulful exploration of desire, heartbreak, and freedom, V is Niia’s most personal album yet. It’s a culmination of years spent experimenting at the intersection of tradition and reinvention, co-produced by Spencer Zahn (Dawn Richard, Empress Of) and Lawrence Rothman (Angel Olsen, Kim Gordon, Kali Uchis). Living in the tension between control and collapse, the pivotal record seamlessly blends the electronic textures of experimental pop with the thrilling interplay that only live, jazz-rooted musicianship can bring. The arrangements stretch–sometimes restrained, sometimes theatrical–but always with intention.
As a classically trained musician who grew up watching Italian cinema, “I pulled from the harmonic language of jazz pianists like Bill Evans and from the psychological atmosphere of film scores,” explains Niia. That combined inspiration and influence is most evident in the songs “Angel Eyes,” a reimagined version of the 1946 jazz standard by Matt Dennis & Earl B. Brent, and “Ronny Cammareri,” a slow-burning instrumental titled after Nicolas Cage’s character in Moonstruck. Meanwhile, the music video for club-jazz anthem “Pianos and Great Danes” is a masterpiece of haunting cinematography featuring flashing, grainy edits mirroring uninhibited desires.
V explores the full spectrum of self: self-harm, self-delusion, self-awareness, and in rare moments, self-love. “Not in a moralizing way, but in a very human one,” she clarifies. “The good and bad live side by side, often in the same verse. One minute I’m performing heartbreak like it’s a role I’ve rehearsed, the next I’m quietly admitting I caused the whole thing. That contradiction is the truth.”
Balancing those heavy themes with Niia’s unapologetic sad girl humor, there are tracks like the provocative album opener “fucking happy,” accented by sarcasm layered over melancholy, that radiate relatability. A sly nod to Fiona Apple’s iconic “Criminal” video, watch the Lili Peper-directed video here.
Also featuring emotional depth with a rebellious sonic palette is “Throw My Head Out The Window,” featuring new wave jazz boundary pushers bassist Anna Butterss and Nicole McCabe on saxophone. It is intentionally over-orchestrated with strings, dissonant piano, and a vocal teetering between aria and tantrum. Watch the minimalist video for the jazz-noir fever dream track here.
With a vision and mission to bridge the gap between control and collapse, the provocateur successfully brings that tension to life not only in her music, but in the album’s cover art as well, featuring Niia affixed with a heretic fork– an instrument of medieval torture reserved for those who spoke out against dogma and orthodoxy. Niia emphasizes, “If I’m going to make my statement in this genre, I need to be a disruptor.”
ABOUT NIIA
Niia Bertino is a classically trained pianist and vocalist rooted in jazz who blends elegance with edge and a timeless voice, with razor-sharp songwriting. Her past work has received praise from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Interview Mag, and Harper’s Bazaar
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