|
As melancholic as the Pacific Northwest tends to be (just ask Tiny Vipers or David Bazan), the region has also been the birthplace of some of the most euphoric, nostalgic music to date. Case in point is Portland, OR’s Nurses, whose first release for Dead Oceans is a kaleidoscopic rocket pop of color and sound. Traditional rock instruments fall back to whistle onslaughts, bright clangings from other worlds, and joyous electronic squiggles.
LINER NOTES: To immerse yourself in Nurses’ Apple’s Acre is to delight in a certain mental unraveling. These are songs where the vulnerability of pop with its heart on its sleeve engages in a double-dutch jumprope match with the euphoric surrender-to-the-weird that is essential to psychedelia. And Nurses is a band that scavenges beauty and wonder, uncovering Technicolor where others see somber hues. Their off-kilter psych-pop is driven by ever-swelling vocal harmonies, adventurous electronics, some serious wheelin’ and dealin’ on the Rhodes piano, and the kind of new-primitivist percussion that may or may not involve a standard drum kit. Apple’s Acre is a record full of dysfunctional, hushed love, laced with elegance and grace and without angst and regret. But the plain courage of their songs is the secret ingredient that’s already turning heads and blowing minds all over the Northwest—and if you think about it, in pop music, courage is always at a premium. Fans of Yeasayer, Deerhoof, Danielson and wild minded pop music should pay close attention.
|