Check out the new single “Make A Life“, from Nick Jaina. It’s the lead track from the digital album, Brutal Lives, which will be released on September 16.
Brutal Lives (Fluff and Gravy Records, Sept 2016) is easily Nick Jaina’s most daring album to date. And that is saying a lot when you consider that Nick has made a career out of re-inventing himself. The 14-track album primarily features work that he originally composed for a contemporary dance piece in the summer of 2014. Though the songs were not used, Nick thought the recordings had some value in them, so he refashioned them, adding vocals, choruses and ambient sounds to give them new life.
Stylistically, the album jumps from the indie-pop standout “Make A Life”, to the haunting “Co-Creators”, to the jarring “Saw You On The Train Last Night”. And I swear, “Fell Too Much In Love” would be right at home in a John Hughes film. Due to the unusual provenance of the recordings, almost every instrument was played and recorded by Nick himself. He gave the collection of songs the title that he proposed for the original dance piece, which was also rejected: Vies Brutales, or Brutal Lives.
This is Nick’s second release on Fluff & Gravy Records, a follow-up to 2013’s Primary Perception. It will be available digitally on September 16, and coupled with a limited-edition printing of an essay that Nick wrote for people who are new to dance, How To Enjoy Dance. 150 copies of the essay will be released in October.
Nick Jaina visited the Daytrotter studios back in June to record songs and stories with Stelth Ulvang, including “All the Best Fakers” from his FnG release, Primary Perception. Perhaps the highlight of this set though, is a haunting version Phosphorescent’s “Song for Zula“, during which Nick recounts a famous exchange between Johnny Cash and Ray Charles on the Johnny Cash Show. Charles had reportedly kicked heroin recently, but Nick ponders whether he was really clean, based on his body language and performance. “If he is on drugs, it is quite an argument for doing drugs”, Jaina concludes.