Getting yourself noticed in a crowded room can sometimes be pretty tough. It's safe to say that Ramona Gonzalez, an L.A.-based musician who records ephemeral, homemade dreambeat music as Nite Jewel, has probably had some experience with the feeling. Unfortunately for Gonzalez, it's not entirely her fault-- despite possessing a somewhat indistinct but chimerically lithe voice, the fact remains that she is still one of many artists today making ephemeral, homemade dreambeat music. What sets most Nite Jewel recordings apart is their refusal to rely too heavily on lazy ambience, often nurturing a variety of sounds rooted in retro funk and future pop. On Am I Real?, a new EP that Gonzalez casually claims to be a chronicle of Nite Jewel's development since the hushed, lo-fi bedroom feel of her debut full-length, Good Evening, she appears to make a concerted effort to reupholster her sound and abandon some of her once too-delicate reflexes.
The two offerings that best frame this development are the best and worst songs on Am I Real?, one indicative of the now stalled aesthetic that aided early Nite Jewel recordings and the other her best track yet. "Falling Far", which appeared on a 7" released last summer, is the former: Sounding like an outtake from Good Evening (which I'm guessing it was), it's proof that the the hazy, minimalist vibe had been stretched just to the breaking point. You could argue that Nite Jewel's reluctance to ever step out of the shadows has been part of the project's charm, and while "Falling Far" is pleasant, there's not much room for expansion with so little to grab onto. Wafting through the room largely unnoticed, its detail-deprived, hook-deficicent existence conveys little else other than a grinning, narcotized plainness. In essence, it simply sounds worn.
But it doesn't go without serving some sort of purpose, showing how far one would have to come to create something as fresh and immediately pleasing as "Am I Real?". Like some long lost, couples-skate jam, the title track is about as far from the lounged-out sounds that once defined Nite Jewel, spotlighting the murky patches of slow-motion disco that murmured below the surface of Good Evening standouts like "What Did He Say". And it isn't only the music that sounds uninhibited, though you'll find it easy to relish in its patient, sexy retro-slink. Gonzalez sounds perfectly comfortable singing directly and weightlessly, opting neither to coo aimlessly (like on opener "Another Horizon") or uncomfortably force her voice into a lower register (doing a bad Nico on "We Want Our Things"). "Am I Real?" instead exudes confidence, deriving its cool from intelligent song craft that requires more than retro artifice to sell itself.
So it's unfortunate that the four tracks that make up the rest of the EP are both bland and weirdly cluttered. Gonzalez has made an effort to eradicate the tape hiss she used to feel so comfortable bathing her songs in, but we can also see why she might have needed it in the first place. "White Lies" and "Another Horizon" both suffer from sounding blocky and truncated, shocking the senses with out-of-place blasts of synth noise, quirky percussion, and cheesy sci-fi embellishments. The party responsible is likely Cole M. Greif-Neill (Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, the Samps), whose taste for erratic arrangements feels out of sync with Gonzalez's approach. Without nurturing the lush interconnectedness of the sounds that older Nite Jewel recordings managed to synthesize almost effortlessly, the skeletal structures on Am I Real? feel unappealingly simplistic and muddied with noises and rhythms that fit together awkwardly. So Am I Real? is another stop-gap in a could-be successful career.
