Nite Jewel - Real High
Drowned In Sound 80
It’s a familiar conundrum. An artist gets signed, brimming with talent and restless ambition, but must sacrifice their creative integrity to satisfy a host of internal label pressures. Ramona Gonzalez, aka Nite Jewel, has been one of the most recent and memorable casualties of this decades’ long process: her 2012 album One Second of Love was bathed in a sugary pop aesthetic that didn’t quite align with Gonzalez’s personal vision, a fact she has gone on record to explain many times. But with a label change that ensured more freedom, 2016’s Liquid Cool was supposed to be her breakout record, one that satisfied not only fans but the music establishment at large. However, despite a noble effort, the album fell short in too many spots, unable to prove once and for all that Nite Jewel was an artist worth subscribing to in any deep sense of the word.
Her latest effort though, Real High, is the album fans have been waiting for - a honeyed blend of her gauzy melodies and barely audible but enslaving vocals. Gonzalez seems completely unoccupied with attempting to prove her worth or please detractors this time around. Her whole attitude reeks simultaneously of someone not giving a fuck while also brainstorming meticulously, and her music has never sounded richer on so many levels. The album borrows heavily from the old-school R&B feel of pastime pop greats like Janet Jackson and Aaliyah while mostly marrying this visage to contemporary dancehall rhythms. As far as subject matter goes, both romantic bliss and turbulence have always been her topical touchstones, and on Real High she explores the mechanics of each with a newfound vulnerability.
The first real manifest sign of Gonzalez’s growth can be witnessed on the cool and coy way she navigates 'Had to Let Me Go'. There is no wasted space here. A wholly confident Gonzalez oozes sensuality and presence while describing a relationship she was not mature enough to handle in adolescence. '2 Good 2 Be True', with its dancehall leanings, is also much more of a lyrically astute effort than we are used to hearing from her. In Grimesian fashion, she manages to deftly craft a song with unhinged pop sensibilities as well as discerning poetics that amplify the music’s latitude tenfold. She seems completely in command of her artistic direction and what results is a visceral essence.
Gonzalez is far from alone in her endeavours. Much of the intoxicating fabric of the album can be contributed to Cole M Greif-Neill, Gonzalez’s husband, Beck’s engineer, and one of the original masterminds behind indie legends Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. The two have never sounded more united in their astuteness and shared sonic phantasm, an aspect that can be witnessed most forcibly in the flourishing aura of 'The Answer', a track that arguably outclasses and exhibits more decorative maturity than anything in Gonzalez catalog to date. Without gorging on hyperbole, the vocal despotism and luxuriant instrumentation is a culmination of everything Gonzalez’s previous efforts hinted at but ultimately failed just slightly to deliver. A heavy dose of similar rousing moments on Real High parade a refined sheen that alas implant Gonzalez as the queen of her creative universe.
One of her most poignant offerings is the synth heavy 'When I Decide (It’s Alright)'. A deceptively simple sonic backdrop unleashes one of Gonzalez’s most shrewd vocal spectacles, where she manipulates her voice as the most staggering instrument, softly crescendoing to the sparse chorus. The more leisurely tracks reel off a dreamy ambience that is a crisp accommodation to Gonzalez and her elastic intonations. She retains her cool vibe while assuming a consummately unguarded and intimate propensity on 'Part of Me', borrowing a lesson from the myriad R&B divas that have influenced her. “Obsession” exposes her insecurities of not feeling like the only girl in the room over a slow, creeping trek of a beat. The album bleeds manifold emotions throughout, but it is in these tempered down junctures that one can really zone out and become enraptured in Gonzalez’s intensity, an experience she undoubtedly wishes to create.
Her animalistic instincts reign supreme on 'R We Talking Long', where she desires to mince words with her lover in exchange for physical contact. With a splash of hip-hop and tenacious yet subdued vocals, the song is similar in style to late Nineties Mariah Carey, closing the album out with a wallop. The album will appeal to new fans, but for anyone that has followed Nite Jewel’s creative ascendance over the years, Real High will stand out as the artistic apex of what she has attempted to create during her short but eventful career. The overwhelming impression is that of authority; an artist at one with herself and her vision.
Thu May 11 09:26:01 GMT 2017Pitchfork 75
It’s easy enough to figure out dates and events from the distant past, but it’s near impossible to understand what it felt like to be alive then. Geographer David Lowenthal has a succinct way of describing this: “The past is a foreign country.” In her work under the nom de pop Nite Jewel, Ramona Gonzalez has always explored the past like a sensory historian, writing songs that use the familiar elements of sweet-as-acid synth-pop and late-night infomercial house without directly imitating them. On Real High, her latest album, she asks a pressing question: Does it actually seem like the world is getting worse, or did the ’90s just feel fun because the club hits were so damn good?
Gonzalez’s previous albums walked the line between sweet-as-acid pop and late-night infomercial house, as seen through the fog of memory. On last year’s Liquid Cool, she returned to hazy throwback lo-fi after a label-led foray into more direct pop and a multi-year hiatus. This time, her sights are set on a specific cultural touchstone: Janet Jackson’s 1993 album janet. She’s not the first to mine Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ new jack swing for modern inspiration, but she has the chops to back it up.
The tracks on Real High tend to start with a Mooged-out bass line and layer keys and tinkling drum fills on top—the basic new jack swing template that took over R&B in the late ’80s and early ’90s. But Gonzalez uses the repetition to circumvent expectations for how pop songs are supposed to work. The songs have verses and choruses, but rarely bridges. “Had to Let Me Go,” one of many variations on the theme of exploring what a real high should feel like, does this to great effect. Her croon is very Janet, but the song gets its momentum and emotional arc from the development of different keyboards and the deployment of percussive effects. A less generous reading of this song—and much of Nite Jewel’s oeuvre—is that they sound like demos a producer would shop around before he got a star attached. But this album makes the case that the architecture of this style of songwriting is strong enough that it should stand on its own.
The marquee tracks are the ones that move away from these genre experiments into a more idiosyncratic approach. Danceable cuts like “The Answer” and “I Don’t Know” feel contemporary because production stretches beyond ’90s touchpoints. A guest appearance from Bay Area rapper (and E-40’s son) Droop-E transforms “R We Talking Long” into trap music. On the title track, she tries to take the prototypical R&B ballad and using her tools to make it feel vital. Even though the emotional stakes are pretty low—“I’m looking for a real high and a real low/Isn’t that the way love goes?,” in another nod to Janet—it’s profound enough in its obvious simplicity to keep your attention on why you’re actually listening to the song: a druggy, lugubrious dance, not a life lesson.
The word “nostalgia” was originally coined to describe the mental ailment of extreme homesickness in the 17th century. After immigrating to a new country, a person would become lethargic and waste away. In the era before planes, trains, and automobiles, once you left home, you were probably never going back. Now that the past can be accessed fairly easily, that sad nostalgia doesn’t make as much sense to us. By putting old sounds into different contexts, Nite Jewel’s albums work as an exploration of a happier nostalgia. Because she takes a specific sound as her point of departure this time around, Real High is her most focused work yet.
Wed May 10 05:00:00 GMT 2017