Since starting this Blogarhythms column I’ve gone through a number of varied schedules when it comes to the time of day I find myself writing posts. In the beginning it was a strictly afternoon affair. Then I found myself pulling all-nighters and writing in the early morning hours just before collapsing in my waiting bed. Recently I’ve found myself operating in a more traditional 9-to-5 type of mode which had me putting together posts as I slowly imbibed my morning dose of caffeine for a number of months. But as the year wound down I found my schedule going all meshugenuh which has resulted in my writing time changing on a nearly day-to-day basis.
It just so happens that today’s post is being written in the quiet hours when late-night turns into early morning, so I sought out a record appropriately suitable for the unique mood and ambiance of the time. Thankfully I found an exceptionally applicable candidate in Ames Room, the debut full length from Silje Nes, a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Bergan, Norway. It’s a collection of exquisitely crafted electronic-tinged Folk/Pop songs orchestrated with a precocious elegance and voiced in ethereally fragile tones that hushedly bespeak both childlike wonderment and adult sensuality, two states of emotion with the potential to overtake the fragile human consciousness when given the dark, open, noiseless space of night to run amok in.
With tracks built around whimsical toy melodies, gently muted rhythms and delicate applications of electronic decoration, topped with a preciously girlish vocal style that verges on baby-talk, Silje’s music is sure to appeal to fans of CocoRosie, Björk, Deerhoof, Dntel, or any number of lesser-known Twee-Pop acts and Laptop musicians. Whether breezily biorhythmic and gossamer-thin like “Escape,” “Over All,” “Melt” or the title track, or more insistently “beaty” like “Dizzy Street,” “Giant Disguise,” and the largely acoustic “Recurring Dream” and “Bright Night Morning,” the songs on Ames Room remain intangibly dreamlike, calmly surreal but eerily haunting, like an abstract, improvisational lullaby used to hum oneself to sleep turned into fully fleshed-out compositions by your slumbering subconscious.
Listen to “Over All”
Ames Room is already out in the UK, but it doesn’t drop until January 21st in Europe, and won’t hit the states until February 12th.
-El Keter
