Tag: Primary Perception

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.

Give a listen to the entire session here

 

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.

There is so much going on with Nick Jaina that it is difficult to know where to start. For one thing, he is now residing in New Orleans, but more on that in a moment. After releasing last summer’s Primary Perception, the lead single, “Don’t Come To Me”, was picked up by NPR’s Heavy Rotation and Morning Edition, and he toured the West Coast (including a stint at Folsom Prison) and Midwest with a string ensemble.  But that was just the beginning. Since that time, Jaina has been busy as musical director and composer for the contemporary dance pieces “Emergence” and “Rituals” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. After selling out two shows, the New York Times called his score “the most physically bracing part of the night”. Of late, he has  been  focusing his energies on a one-man theatrical set of music and storytelling called “The Hole in Coffin”, and will be spending the summer in New Orleans to bring it to the stage. It will be premiering at the Fringe Festival in November and at PUSH Festival in Vancouver, Canada in January (2015).  In addition, Nick has been hosting “The Story of Your Life” on X-RAY FM in Portland, which is a 30 minute weekly show combining new instrumental music with conversations with fascinating people. After its run on the radio it will continue on as a regular podcast.

With all of this, it is understandable that Jaina has only rarely been seen publicly performing his Indie Pop repertoire over the last several months. Word on the street is, however, is that we are all in for a treat, as Nick will be returning to the Northwest in June for a short run of performances, which will find him accompanied by trumpet, violin and drums. Here are the details, catch him while you can:

June 7, Sou’Wester, Seaview, WA
Tues Jun 10 at Red Light in Bellingham, WA
Wed Jun 11 at Fremont Abbey in Seattle, WA (with Stelth Ulvang, of The Lumineers)
Fri Jun 13 at Portland State University in Portland, OR

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M47iv0sg-6k[/youtube]

 

 

 

“Don’t Come To Me”, from Nick Jaina’s Primary Perception evolved from an attempt to write a sympathetic indie-pop song from the perspective of a largely unloveable politician. The track was called “unshakeable” by Spin, and was featured on NPR’s Heavy Rotation, as well as Morning Edition. When it came time to create a video, Jaina teamed up with director Seth Whelden, from Portland-based production company, STNDRD, and choreographer, Candace Bouchard, from Oregon Ballet Theater.  “I’ve been working on composing music for ballet over the last few years, and there is not a better feeling than making music that people dance to, in any style or context”, says Jaina. “I asked my friend Candace Bouchard from Oregon Ballet Theater if she would humor watching me dance at a club and offering some direction on which moves worked. I also asked her to choreograph a routine for some real ballet dancers. The idea was that I would come in with my untrained moves and disrupt this beautiful thing they created, but in the process maybe I could suggest in them some autonomy. I mostly am wary of musicians acting in music videos. We’ve all probably spent too many hours watching musicians try to act. So why not just try to dance instead? At least the results, if not professional, would perhaps be endearing in their awkwardness.”

Enjoy the video, in all of it’s awkward beauty, here.

[youtube height=”HEIGHT” width=”WIDTH”]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M47iv0sg-6k[/youtube]

On his 2013 lp, Primary Perception, Nick Jaina took a gamble, gathering only the people in the studio who wanted to be there and figuring out what song to play only once they were all assembled. It was a completely non-scripted experiment. Often no one had heard the song prior to the session and the four to eight people in attendance would just work out an arrangement right there in the studio, sometimes with three guitarists working at the same time, sometimes with three drummers. Almost all of the instruments were recorded live and the experiment kept everyone focused on the song at the moment, not thinking of what was to come, and arranging their part while they could simultaneously hear what everyone else in the room was doing.

For a limited time, you can order Nick Jaina’s Primary Perception on  deluxe LP and receive an exclusive 7″ with 2 unreleased tracks (Sea of Japan b/w Delta of of Venus). To order the record on Deluxe LP/LP/CD/FLAC/mp3, click here

 

“Nick Jaina is probably best known to Portlanders as a prolific singer-songwriter, but he’s taken some interesting creative side roads in the three years since his last record: He’s written three ballets, worked on a film soundtrack and composed music for a play in New Orleans. Primary Perception marks Jaina’s return to pop songwriting, and “Don’t Come to Me” is among its standouts. The track began as an unlikely attempt to write a song from the perspective of Mitt Romney, and later came to life when Jaina took what he had to band members during the sessions that ended up on the record. This isn’t quite the version we play on air — that one includes FCC edits — but it’s an earworm either way, the latest of many from one of Portland’s most consistent musicians”. —Jeremy Petersen

Read the full article and listen to the song here.