Veröffentlicht
Mar 14, 2017Veröffentlicht
February 2017
- During last year's Selectors festival in Croatia, Jonny Nash played live at 6 AM. Armed with his guitar, a couple pedals and a small synth, he soothed weary festivalgoers in front of The Garden Tisno's small tiki bar, a pastel-coloured morning sky and the calm blue bay serving as his backdrop. His music is perfectly suited to such occasions. Nash has become a key artist in the renaissance of ambient, Balearic and new age music, through his work as one third of Gaussian Curve and his Melody As Truth label, which has issued his own music plus two LPs from Suzanne Kraft, Talk From Home and What You Get For Being Young.
On Eden, Nash's second solo album, he avoids the pitfalls that face any album of easygoing, inoffensive music—the seven tracks are too detailed and rich to slide by unnoticed or unloved. Parts of the album were recorded in Bali, and the melodic beauty of Balinese gamelan is a lingering presence, most notably on "Down In Babakan" and "Police Bribe." But Eden has other stylistic touchstones. One is Japan, where Nash lived for several years. During his time there in the '00s, he dug through the country's deep archives of experimental ambient and minimal music, and the chimes and percussion of "Agape" seem to nod to artists like Midori Takada and Yas-Kaz.
Elsewhere, Nash displays both restraint and compositional skill. On "Maroon Crisp," thick textures and chords gesture towards something beautiful rather than try to capture beauty head-on. I have no idea if the person referenced in "Conversations With Mike" is exotica maestro Mike Cooper, but the track's echoey guitars and sluggish bassline are in line with his vision of music from the tropics. If there's one element that defines this album, it's the mellow feeling of its composition and instrumentation. This is most confidently exhibited on Eden's closer, "Lime," an exquisite track where the delicate guitar work and long pauses between each piano chord suggest Nash has found his own sonic paradise.
Tracklist01. Agape
02. Maroon Crisp
03. Down In Babakan
04. Ding Repair
05. Conversations With Mike
06. Police Bribe
07. Lime