Shelf Nunny - Pronoia

A Closer Listen

Pronoia is the opposite of paranoia: the idea that fate is conspiring for a person, that others’ intentions are benign, and that everything is working toward the good.  While this attitude, like paranoia, may exist outside of reality, it may also become a self-fulfilling prophecy; positive thoughts attract positivity.  In the year leading up to this album, Shelf Nunny adopted pronoia, with pleasing results.  As January is a time for new beginnings, the music invites listeners to do the same.

And like Janus, who looks forward and backward at the same time, this album exists in two versions, that one might call paranoid and pronoid.  The difference is one of sequencing; depending on which version one encounters, “dnt L3@v3 m3 ft sim1 bby” is either the first track or the last.  While vocals are rare in Shelf Nunny’s music, this track contains the phrase, “Don’t leave me.”  In the opening spot, it becomes the tragedy that engenders growth: a formative experience that is incorporated into a healthier mindset.  But as the closer, it suggests the progress crashing down, the artist left even worse than before.  We lean toward the pronoid interpretation; although there is a third possible take that we’ll get to at the end of this article.

Now to the music.  Shelf Nunny can’t seem to make a dour album, no matter how poorly his life may be going.  Looking back, he now refers to Utangátta as an album in which one can “feel the pain and hopelessness,” but we had an opposite read: in our review, we wrote, “He plows toward hope, even when he doesn’t feel it yet.”  Somewhere in the universe, there is probably a word for a person who exudes positivity, even when unintentional; if so, the word should become the title of his next album.  The bulk of these tracks are upbeat, accumulating joy as they roll down the hill, like a runaway snowball.

Even the most sedate piece, “I Drove Past Our Old House Last Night” (shades of Olivia Rodrigo!) picks up speed as it progresses, bounding into club territory midway before ending with a light conversation about anxiety.  And “All the Bad Things” (whose title is reminiscent of a Blink 182 song) seems to imply that the bad things will pass.  The nostalgic feel of “Old Self Hidden Relic” suggests a person flipping through an old photo book and realizing that the past wasn’t all bad after all, while the mid-piece liftoff of “Perfect Send Off” offers a similar reassessment.

The choice of “Cascade Glide” as the album’s first single reveals a lot about the composer: this is the fact the artist wishes to put forward.  Textures and beats perform a pas de deux; crunchy footsteps imply forward motion.  The track also possesses the album’s most triumphant sequence, rising out of silence at 1:37 like a declaration.  The speedy tempo of “Void Out” underscores the distance that has been traveled, while (in the pronoid version) the closing “Savoca” builds to a tribal finale that sounds like friendship, community and acceptance.

Now to that third interpretation.  In light of the album’s healing trajectory, one might receive the words “Don’t leave me” as a plea from artist to listener, inviting one to spend more time with the album, to dig deeper into joy, to practice pronoia rather than to leave it on the table.  Stay a little longer.  Dwell in this goodness.  The choice of sequencing operates as a litmus test: pronoia or paranoia?  The rub: the way one thinks may determine one’s future.  (Richard Allen)