Nite Jewel apply the no-fi production ethics of Ariel Pink to the world of electro and shoegaze. The result sounds like Enya improvising songs in the bath over the backing of synthesisers and drum machines low on battery power. And while this sound undoubtedly possesses novelty value, the hidden depths suggested by the murk fail to emerge. My conclusion is that this album is wallpaper. Not only that, it’s ugly wallpaper, stained and pretentious.
Nite Jewel sounds like an unfunny pastiche of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. It replaces the humour and song craft in Haunted Graffiti with a procession of necrotic proto-electro dirges. These dirges rely on kitsch synthesisers and crap old drum machines to “keep them fresh” and to retain some sense of post-ironic cool amid the desolation. Nite Jewel sounds like a dilution of a dilution of a dilution of something that wasn’t very good anyway. Cocteau Twins, maybe. Yawn.
No degree of intentionality or self-conscious cool can disguise the simple fact that the album is dreary and banal. No hipster shrug saying “but it’s meant to be dreary and banal” convinces me that Good Evening is ever worth listening to, ever again. Knowing it’s crap doesn’t justify it being crap. In fact, it taints the cynical exercise in narcissism even more.
Nite Jewel’s Good Evening can provide enough entertainment for maybe one optimistic listen before you can be sure it really is a load of cynical crap. Maybe it’s not a load of cynical crap, but I certainly found it challenging finding any cultural nourishment beyond the aspartame of its obscurantist production strategies, kitsch instrumentation and windy vocalising.
Now go get House Arrest by Ariel Pink.
Tags: Good Evening, Music, Nite Jewel
