Review: Nels

Nels - Circulation (Independent)

This is very pleasant indeed; just the right groove to get all things flowing, with enough instruments in the mix to carry along the electronics, while hazy female vocals melt the knees and prevent your escape. If, indeed, you did wanted to escape. You’d only do so because the whole thing (including the bird twittering, and the gentle sounds of water gurgling around rocks) was just so perfect you wanted to lie down and drown whilst your life was peaking so completely.

Of course, you’ll want to know more about these girls, this band, and the musical genre that these eight tracks percolate through. Well, first of all there aren’t any girls. Secondly, it isn’t a band either, just one Japanese guy running the whole show alone. Thirdly, I would hesitate before I attempt to try to give “Circulation” a generic home… … … yep, that's me hesitating… … … I guess I’ll plump for semi-ambient, shoegaze, humane electronica. It's warm and cuddly music in a similar field to those that It Hugs Back and early Bibio wander around, although the terrain is quite different, in fact not the same at all. I also got the instrumental side of things wrong too, as the more I listen to “Circulation” the more synthetic it sounds.

All of this amounts to very little, of course, because at the heart of this music is that delicate warmth, as if without notice the whole thing could melt away. I get a vision of my CD being ejected from the player, all Dali-esque in form, but still functioning and intact. Okay, I give up - go listen or buy it yourself, and you decide.

http://www.myspace.com/nels.jp

Kev A.