It begins with a familiarly organic sound: the puffing of a
harmonica, with clusters of notes blown childishly. Soon a kalimba
drops a dizzy patter, then a chunky synth buzzes in the background
while a ghostly voice sighs a lamentation.
It’s the first track from As Good as Gone, the fourth album
from Nudge and their second for Chicago label Kranky. As in their
previous work, Nudge pinpoints a border where natural instrumentation
meets electronic manipulation, with disorienting and often beautiful
results. Nudge is primarily the work of Brian Foote, a former
Portlander who played in Fontanelle and has recently worked with
Bradford Cox in Atlas Sound. Foote began Nudge in 1998 as a studio
project with guests, but since then, the lineup has gravitated around
Foote and two other Portland musicians: Honey Owens of Jackie-O
Motherfucker and her own solo project Valet; and Paul Dickow, founder
of the Community Library label who also performs as electronic artist
Strategy.
The idea behind Nudge, Foote says, was “originally, just to expand
or explore my studio technique and the possibilities of different kinds
of technologies that I was either unfamiliar with or as they became
available. I always try to have Paul and Honey involved when the group
is working on new music as well as for live performances, when
scheduling and geography allows.”
Like the music itself, the nature of the collaboration is reliant on
technology as well as human contact. “The spark for all the songs come
from folks playing in the same room,” says Foote. “Nudge albums tend to
be a very slow affair. As Good as Gone was worked on for a
little over three years, which is about the same length of time as the
album before it.
“Most often,” Foote continues, “we record jams on physical
instrumentation which I edit down to a framework or use to build
sampler instruments from. This allows us to manipulate things in a live
setting much greater than normal. Then the songs are built up
with this kind of exponential improvisation. This is not a technique
unique to Nudge, but it’s very easy to end up with something that
sounds awfully ‘computery,’ which we go to great lengths to avoid.”
Despite the cloak of electronic frippery, the human element of As
Good as Gone is never concealed, and the music feels like it
inhabits a place of hard-earned meditative peace surrounded by busy
distractions. “Two Hands,” which may be the closest thing to a pop song
on the album, is led by Owens’ minimal vocal melody and a
stop-and-start dub bassline. The track grows with martial percussion
and distorted guitar before expiring with a muted trumpet. “Tito” has
the bare skeleton of a new Balearic dance track, but is traced over
with clicks and gurgles, and Owens’ desolate choirboy vocal. Meanwhile,
the slow, brushed snare-drum beat of “Burns Blue” could be part of a
torch song, but instead becomes ominously trance-like, with pulsating
chords in the background that howl like fierce gusts of wind.
For the Portland show, Jon Pyle of Starving Weirdos and RV Paintings
will join the core trio of Foote, Owens, and Dickow. “Aside from our
different personal tastes in music, the main influence has always been
process, which I’m sure sounds a little stuffy,” says Foote. “At the
end of the day, though, we’re just trying to write far-out tunes.”