Patchwork Genius
by James Roland
Orange flames lick skyscrapers and crackle around Times Square, filling brick alleys with heat and turning windblown litter into fire bombs. But it’s all right, because it has a beat you can dance to.
Nick Jaina packs his latest album, A Bird in the Opera House, full of vibrant imagery — some of it creepy, some of it flowery, all of it beautiful — that lingers long after your iPod falls silent. The album releases on April 13th, and if it doesn’t make someone’s yearly top ten list, then we’ll know for certain that Rihanna’s pouty tones and Lady Gaga’s head-spinning makeup formed a dumb-inducing vortex that wiped the last shreds of good taste from the heads of music reviewers like me.
In other words: Nick Jaina is awesome, you should buy his music.
His knack for wordsmithing, apparent since his first album in 2005 (The Bluff of All Time), achieves masterful status in Opera House. Like The Beatles in their early work, Jaina can shoot straight without being sappy (I am in love with the shape of your eyes), or he can wax poetic like Dylan (If wine is blood, this bar is the abattoir/We have slaughtered every night of our lives), but unlike most of the greats he can weave these lyrical styles seamlessly within the same song (track #4, “Sleep, Child”).
Although he’s been on the indie music scene for years, Jaina’s work slipped under the mainstream radar: a clandestine travesty for his fans, but maybe a boon to his art form. Anonymity let him experiment and stretch his music into an awesome, hard-to-classify sound that falls somewhere between rock, emo, blues, old-time country, and folk.
With Opera House, he calls back the strengths of his previous four albums. “I Don’t Believe You” (track #5) has the ethereal background vocals of his third album, Wool, minus the mournful, dreamlike atmosphere. “Strawberry Man” sounds like the bouncing folk tunes on his second album, The 7 Stations, with cleaner, more ‘produced’ vocals and instruments.
This may sound like a schizophrenic patchwork of genres, but Jaina pulled all these elements into a single, cohesive vibe. He evolved and sifted his past mistakes and victories, leaving only gems. “Asheville” (track #11) sounds like a simple album-ender as it starts with a basic guitar strum. But when Jaina’s vocals appear, lilting and polished, maybe a full octave higher than any previous track, backed by gentle percussion, strings, and wordless vocals, it’s difficult to focus on anything else (read: “do not operate heavy machinery while listening to this song”).
But the album’s crowning jewel, “Theresa” (track #7), cements Jaina’s work as some of the best music being produced in the United States. Based on his friend’s dream — born after a hard decision to leave Jaina’s band and move to New York — the song is at once chilling, tearful, and so full of magic it transports you completely into the fire-filled streets of dream-state New York. To achieve the song’s ethereal tone, drummer Scott Magee plays the upper frets of Sean Flinn’s guitar with his drumsticks while Flinn plucks out the opening chords. Seen live (which I highly recommend while Nick Jaina and gang tour the States this year), it’s very clear that Jaina surrounded himself with amazing talent, folks who, like him, refuse to think about music the same standard way and look at their instruments, every single part, with an eye for devising new sounds, new art, new ways to reach an audience that’s overdosed on the same three chords.
Whether live or recorded, Jaina and his band are unsung musical heroes, making incredible tunes for a small, loyal fan base. But with A Bird in the Opera House, maybe they’re on their way to filling Staples Center with thousands of screaming, Twilight-addled teenage uberfans. I doubt it — local pubs in Portland seem to be more Jaina’s style — but I’d sure love the option of humming along to his tunes at the supermarket instead of gritting my teeth to The Black Eyed Peas.
Check out his album on April 13th, and maybe that wish will come true.
Album available at:
Any of Nick’s tour venues
HUSH Records (cheaper and supports indie business!)
Amazon (more expensive and supports corporations!)
