Dutch singer/songwriter Mia Nicolai celebrates rediscovery, human connection, and the exhilaration of being alive on “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” – reflecting on the song’s origin, its playful music video, and the deeper philosophy behind her debut EP ‘Sharing Space Among the Stars.’

“Nothing Compares to This Feeling” – Mia Nicolai

The return of joy can feel almost unbelievable.

After long stretches of doubt, loneliness, and searching, the moment when life suddenly opens back up – when the sun hits your face just right and your heart remembers how to beat freely again – carries an electricity that’s impossible to manufacture. It’s fragile, fleeting, and deeply human: That instant when everything aligns and you feel, if only for a moment, completely alive.

On “Nothing Compares to This Feeling,” Mia Nicolai captures that rare spark and bottles it in sound. The LA-based singer/songwriter’s dazzling new single shimmers with dreamy indie pop warmth and gentle euphoria, celebrating the quiet miracle of rediscovering yourself after the darkness lifts. With its soft glow of synths, buoyant rhythm, and open-hearted refrain – “Nothing compares to this feeling, and I feel it” – the song unfolds like a deep breath after a long winter, a spellbinding reminder that even after the hardest seasons, light can still shine through.

So easy to forget
I’ve been having a hard time
That every year I’ve had
Up until now has been the bad kind

I know what it’s like to be lonely
Yeah I’ve got so many questions
But when the moment holds me
It makes me feel so alive

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering the music video for “Nothing Compares to This Feeling,” the radiant second track off Mia Nicolai’s recently-released debut EP Sharing Space Among the Stars (November 2025 via Superglue Records). Born in Amsterdam and now based in Los Angeles, Nicolai crafts music that blends dreamy pop textures with theatrical spirit and emotional candor – a sound shaped by years of travel, self-reflection, and creative searching. Over the past six years, she’s released music on and off while experimenting with pop’s many textures, slowly shaping a voice that feels increasingly her own. After representing the Netherlands at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, Nicolai entered a period of personal and artistic recalibration, channeling those experiences into a body of work that feels both introspective and expansive.

Produced by Vetle Junker (AURORA, SKAAR, Janelle Kroll), Sharing Space Among the Stars marks Nicolai’s first true artistic statement, weaving together songs written across London, Los Angeles, and Bergen, Norway as she rediscovered her voice and sense of self. “It’s about the fact that we’re all on this planet being humans that don’t really know why we’re here,” Nicolai tells Atwood Magazine. “The point, to me, is to figure out how to be free in being human, and how to be free in connecting to the self and to others.” If the EP as a whole explores the strange and beautiful experience of being human on Earth together, “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” captures one of its brightest emotional peaks: The moment you reconnect with yourself and remember what it feels like to be fully alive.

That feeling arrived for Nicolai in a fleeting, but unforgettable moment during a songwriting trip in Norway.

“I was in Bergen, Norway on a songwriting trip for a camp called Bergen Songs and I had one of those rare moments where you fall back in love with life after a long process of finding that feeling,” she recalls. “The sun was on my face as I walked from my hotel to the studio, listening to the producer’s previous work so I could understand his sound and gently guide it toward where I wanted the songwriting day to go. From the very first track he had worked on that I heard, I knew it was going to be a special day.”

When Nicolai arrived at the studio, producer Vetle Junker hadn’t yet arrived – leaving her alone at first with songwriter Eirik Aas. The conversation that followed quickly turned philosophical and curious, touching on travel, chance encounters, and the strange shared experience of being human. By the time Junker walked through the door, the emotional blueprint for the song was already in place.

“[Aas] asked all the right questions, and we immediately bonded over our shared curiosity about life – talking to strangers, traveling alone, and the idea that none of us really know what we’re doing on this planet… The song almost wrote itself. At its core, ‘Nothing Compares to This Feeling’ is about reconnecting with yourself – remembering who you are beneath layers of expectation and societal pressure. I started to feel like I belonged the moment I accepted that I didn’t feel like I belonged. Isn’t that funny?”

That sense of rediscovery pulses through the song itself. Nicolai opens “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” in a place many listeners will recognize: “So easy to forget / I’ve been having a hard time.” The admission is disarmingly plainspoken, yet it quickly gives way to something brighter. As the rhythm lifts and her voice opens outward, the song traces the subtle shift from isolation toward connection – toward that rare moment when your heartbeat seems to sync with the world around you and, suddenly, everything feels possible again:

Every time my heart beat synchs
I feel it in my head and my toes
And when the air around me feels like
Baby I’m finally home

Nothing compares
to this feeling, and I feel it
Nothing compares
to this feeling, and I feel it
I feel it, oh I feel it
I feel it, oh I feel it

That feeling of connection surfaces most vividly in the song’s second verse, where Nicolai finds herself sharing a quiet moment with a stranger at a bar – two lives intersecting briefly in the kind of honest exchange that only happens between people who may never meet again. It’s a fleeting scene, but an important one. In Nicolai’s world, even the smallest encounters can remind us that we’re not alone, and that sometimes the path back to ourselves runs through another human being.

Sitting at the bar with a man
He said no man is an island
He lost the job that he had
So we sat sitting in silence

It’s a sentiment that carries beautifully into the visual we’re premiering today. Directed by Joelle Taylor (Lisa of BLACKPINK, Teddy Swims, Charli XCX), the music video mirrors that sense of freedom and rediscovery with effortless grace. Throughout it, Nicolai moves through an impeccably designed home, singing directly to the camera as she dances through sunlit rooms, basking in good feelings and getting her groove on. Between playful choreography, she pauses for a chess move here, a lemonade break there – small, human moments that make the scene feel authentic, lived-in, and intimate. The result is a portrait full of space and light, one that beautifully echoes the song’s celebration of life’s natural beauty and joy.

Working with choreographer Carly Johnson, Nicolai set out to translate the song’s arc into physical expression. “We were able to put the emotion of the song into movement that felt so freeing,” she explains. “I wanted the dynamic of the song’s lyrics to come out into visuals and movement. My favorite part is that Vetle Junker (the producer and co-writer) is playing the chess player in the second verse, the voice of the stranger I’m speaking with. The metaphor of chess was that you can play chess with any stranger and speak a language that both players understand through playing the board. The tossing of the board was an inspired impulse that we ended up using for the video. That’s my favorite part about shooting – the improvisations that happen in a spur of a moment. to me that’s making art. allowing to play and playing with what comes up from that. and it worked!”

Every time my heart beat synchs
I feel it in my head and my toes
And when the air around me feels like
Baby I am finally home

Nothing compares
to this feeling, and I feel it
Nothing compares
to this feeling, and I feel it
I feel it, oh I feel it
I feel it, oh I feel it

Moments like the one Nicolai describes in Bergen are rare, but they leave a lasting imprint.

“Nothing Compares to This Feeling” lives inside that fleeting space where heaviness begins to lift and the world opens again, capturing the fragile exhilaration of rediscovering yourself after losing sight of who you are. The song doesn’t attempt to solve life’s mysteries so much as it embraces them, honoring the strange, beautiful contradictions of being alive – the loneliness and the wonder, the questions and the connection.

For Nicolai, that realization has been hard-won. The path toward becoming an artist has brought its share of uncertainty, self-doubt, and emotional turbulence, but it has also offered moments of clarity powerful enough to eclipse everything that came before. “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” reflects that balance: The understanding that darkness and brightness can exist within the same life, and that sometimes the most meaningful victories are the invisible ones – the moments when you rediscover your own inner light.

That perspective lies at the heart of Sharing Space Among the Stars. Throughout her debut EP, Nicolai explores the peculiar reality that none of us truly knows why we’re here, yet we move through the world together anyway – loving, searching, questioning, and trying to make sense of it all. If the project invites listeners to embrace the freedom of simply being human, then “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” stands as one of its most radiant expressions: A celebration of the rare and electrifying moment when everything inside you finally clicks back into place.

Watch the music video for “Nothing Compares to This Feeling” exclusively on Atwood Magazine below, and read on for our full conversation with Mia Nicolai about the song’s origin, the philosophy behind Sharing Space Among the Stars, and the personal journey that shaped this bright, exciting new chapter of her artistry.

My heart is finally breathing
Lights on I’m out of the deep end
And oh I wanna find a way to keep it
Cause nothing compares to this feeling
It’s so easy to forget
So let this be a reminder

— —

:: stream/purchase Nothing Compares to This Feeling here ::

:: connect with Mia Nicolai here ::

— —

“Nothing Compares to This Feeling” – Mia Nicolai

A CONVERSATION WITH MIA NICOLAI

Mia Nicolai: I want them to know that I’ve developed inwards into myself, that the more that I’ve been writing music, the more that I’ve allowed myself to do what feels best for my truest version of self. That I’ve been extremely human and that I’ve put that into my art.

Mia Nicolai: My north star would and will always be Ziggy Stardust aka David Bowie. His version of being an all-round artist inspires me on every level. I love Maggie Rogers, BENEE, Elton John, Queen, ABBA, Joni Mitchell, Rosalia and many more. I just love music and the joy of being able to put feelings into sound that then makes you want to dance or feel the feelings even stronger. My favorite compliment is when someone tells me they put my music on when they’re on a bike or on the move in general. That’s how I fell in love with music, biking through Amsterdam with my headphones on and finding songs that matched my emotional state. There’s nothing more romantic than sitting in the tube in London or New York with a song blasting in your ears, giving your heart the permission to get into the feelings.

Mia Nicolai: When you’re down and find that moment back of light within yourself – becoming yourself again, that feeling! There’s nothing that compares to that feeling. The moment the sun starts shining again after a dark cloudy winter – but then emotionally 😉 from all my travels I learned to speak with anyone, anywhere, and there’s nothing like speaking to a stranger and confiding into each other. That feeling came through in the second verse – that moment where you feel so connected to another human being that it connects yourself to yourself again.

Mia Nicolai: That no matter what – I can find my inner light again. I’ve been through so many ups and downs in my life. Choosing the path of an artist is far from easy and there’s been many moments of dark doubts and many moments of super confident highs. There’s this fine line between needing others to approve while also only listening to your inner approval. because you need the world to approve your art in order to make a living while you also aren’t making real art when you’re doing it for others. That creates a lot of “drama” so to speak and I put that into this song.

Mia Nicolai: By working with choreographer Carly Johnson, we were able to put the emotion of the song into movement that felt so freeing. I wanted the dynamic of the song’s lyrics to come out into visuals and movement. My favorite part is that Vetle Junker (the producer and co-writer) is playing the chess player in the second verse, the voice of the stranger I’m speaking with. The metaphor of chess was that you can play chess with any stranger and speak a language that both players understand through playing the board. The tossing of the board was an inspired impulse that we ended up using for the video. That’s my favorite part about shooting – the improvisations that happen in a spur of a moment. to me that’s making art. allowing to play and playing with what comes up from that. and it worked!!

Mia Nicolai: Sharing Space Among the Stars is about the fact that we’re all on this planet being humans that don’t really know why we’re here. Depression, therefore, doesn’t even actually make sense either, because what’s the point? While we’re here, we might as well try to make it a party. right? So the point, to me, is to figure out how to be free in being human, and how to be free in connecting to the self and to others. This song adds to it by sharing that nothing compares to the feeling of being yourself, your free truest self.

Mia Nicolai: As mentioned above the story behind the EP is that nobody knows what we’re doing here. We all experience pain, loss, love, yearning, fights, hope, disappointment etc. and there’s this tendency to make life unnecessarily hard on each other by for instance not communicating well, or being mean, or selfish etc. etc. that’s a whole story and can of worms that doesn’t fully match this answer but there’s a line here. life is so weird and truly actually when you zoom out doesn’t fully make sense. I wanted to make a body of work that shares that feeling in the hope to help others and myself to become more true to the self. to be more free. I hope that when people come to my show they feel some joy and acceptance in not knowing. That it’s okay and that there’s a lot of freedom in being present and connecting to one another. To accept instead of judge. To just BE.

Mia Nicolai: I accidentally already answered this question above – I really hope people put this song on while they’re in movement of any kind. Every time I go to ballet class, I feel such a burst of energy after because moving the body is one of the best ways to connect to the body. I hope that these songs will make people do that. but also I hope that people put this song on while they’re with friends and sing along together or make a dance on it together or even decide to learn some of the choreography I did in the music video. I would absolutely love that!

Mia Nicolai: I have been listening to “chains of love” by charli xcx for wuthering heights – that’s SUCH a good example of a song that allows the heart to feel what there is to feel! The yearning! Ooooh, I feel it every time that song comes on, it makes me wanna fall in love and get hurt at the same time. Haha, I also have been listening a lot to my new music that I’m currently working on. In all honesty, I don’t often listen to music, weird right? I tend to listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or just silence. I appreciate those moments since I work in music all day long. My ears love a break! Haha.

— —

:: stream/purchase Nothing Compares to This Feeling here ::

:: connect with Mia Nicolai here ::

— —

“Nothing Compares to This Feeling” – Mia Nicolai

— — — —

Connect to Mia Nicolai on
Facebook, 𝕏, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Joelle Grace

:: Stream Mia Nicolai ::