| Nomo - Ghost Rock |
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| Written by Steve McPherson | |
| Monday, August 11, 2008 at 11:27 AM | |
 NomoGhost Rock Nomo's Official Website Nomo's MySpace The magic of Nomo's Ghost Rock is distinctively cumulative, and there's no way you get at it by any shortcuts. Of course, that's also true of Nomo's most obvious influence, Fela Kuti. Kuti took the funk and soul rhythms of James Brown, incorporated native African percussion, and stretched the resulting grooves over vast chasms of space. The resulting bridges between West Africa and America usually took up an entire side of an LP, and although the longest track on Ghost Rock is under 7 minutes, as an album, it's no less an exercise in the methodical construction of a grand, bizarre musical architecture. Most longform music leans heavily on technical virtuosity to carry the day; the good bands at their best resemble acrobats, leaping around the music with dizzying speed and accuracy, while the bad ones simply vamp away, never achieving transcendence. And Nomo definitely vamp, but the difference is that they're not aspiring to technical virtuosity, but something more akin to meditative virtuosity. Any practice of meditation involves moving through different levels of concentration, often on mundane things like breathing. Thus, its goal is not to show you new things so much as the same things, but in new ways. Think of those Magic Eye pictures where through unfocusing your eyes (or achieving deep focus, according to Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld) you can suddenly see a rocket ship. Nomo have a rocket ship, too, but it's all in how you look at it. Ghost Rock begins with "Brainwaves," and it's a canny move, because rather than seeming like another Antibalas (who also draw heavily on Kuti and his Afrobeat style), Nomo at first come off more electronic than organic. The sweeping oscillator-esque sound you hear, though, is something of a red herring, because it's maybe the most organic sound you can get: the brainwave patterns of saxophonist Elliott Bergman. First the drums fill in around it, and then a baritone sax, and then higher horns are laid in, but the track remains essentially formless, eventually evaporating into "All The Stars," which is built around what I'm pretty sure is a distorted mbira line (the band builds a lot of their own instruments). Although there's still no chorus and no bridge, "All The Stars" contains a kind of circular form, allowing for individual improvisations that gradually melt into gusts of horns and woodwinds. Stream "Round The Way" below: Subtly, though, the record is ramping up. "Round The Way" is a touch more restless and urgent, and there are brassier and brighter horn themes, and more of them. And when the drums drop suddenly, exposing the complex interplay of the rest of the band for just a breath around the 3:15 mark, Ghost Rock goes quietly supernova in your head. You could probably listen to this record a dozen times and not quite catch the subtle ebb and flow it's riding, but once you do, it's transformative. "Rings" mixes cacophonous, lo-fi vibes and marimba with sweet and smooth saxes, so when you reach the album's midpoint in "My Dear," the song's straight ahead, spy movie guitar line and cascading horn lines feel giant and badass, despite the fact that you haven't moved very far musically from the record's beginning. This is the subtle magic at the center of the record, and while there are few good records that aren't improved by close listening on headphones, Ghost Rock is one that only becomes truly transcendent when you can block out the hustle and bustle of everyday life and give it its due. Not because it's complex, and not because it's hard to understand, but rather precisely because it's easy to grasp. You might let this one slip under the radar as good background music, but it only becomes truly rewarding when you can see how its evolutions and repetitions and begin to converge on infinity. COMING UP: Nomo perform with Solid Gold and Beatrix*Jar on Thursday, August 14 at the Seventh Street Entry . 8 pm. 18+. $8. |
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| Last Updated: Monday, August 11, 2008 at 05:13 PM |
