Nicole Simone Comes Home to Herself on Debut Album ‘Circles’
Nicole Simone, the Toronto-born cinematic surf pop artist now splitting her time between Toronto and Los Angeles, has issued her debut full-length album Circles through Soul Spazm. From her apartment roof she could see the Chateau Marmont with its lights always on, a view that directly inspired the single Chateau, one of three standout singles from Circles. The album arrives as the culmination of an independent career built across cities and marked by personal resilience, with Simone framing the project as a return to her core artistic identity rather than a reinvention.
Simone recorded the album during the LA wildfires, evacuating with her dog Indie and spending a month in Arizona while uncertain where home truly was. She identifies the connecting thread across the songs as liminality, the sense of people, relationships and places suspended between arriving and leaving. London, Barcelona and LA function as distinct characters in the narrative, each reflecting states of transition that mirror her own experiences during the recording period and the broader questions of belonging that surface throughout the tracklist.
Circles was the first song Simone wrote after committing to the album, composed at her kitchen counter and sparked by eclectic conversations with a reality star whose ex-wife was publicly criticizing him online. She later reflected that titling the album Circles felt appropriate because making her first full-length record brought her full circle as an artist. The process felt less like starting over and more like returning to herself, a sentiment that anchors the record’s overarching story of closure and self-reconnection.
Suit Undone draws from a Hollywood Hills adventure with a stranger and includes a subtle nod to Crowded House, while Chateau serves as Simone’s homage to Interpol and The Strokes, the band she describes as the one she never got to have growing up. These personal stories and musical references sit alongside the record’s broader themes, giving individual tracks distinct emotional textures that still cohere under the album’s central motif of circular movement and return.
Producer Billy Lefler’s live drumming supplies the record’s raw edge, captured at Death Star Records alongside vintage guitars and synths. Indie, an Australian Cattle Dog rescued through the charity Simone founded, remained in the booth for every session and passed away the week the album was released. Simone says her companion is all over the record too.
Beyond music, Simone is an award-winning filmmaker behind the series ON A LIST, a writer whose work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, and the founder of Redemption Paws, the rescue charity that has saved more than four thousand dogs and contributed to changes in Canadian federal law for animals. She has sustained her independent career while living with a rare, life-altering disability, a fact that underscores the determination behind the album’s creation and release.
Simone has described Circles as the most important piece of art she has ever made. All the lights are still on at the Chateau, and Nicole Simone has found her way home back to Canada.
