Few would deny that Dan "the Automator" Nakamura makes records sound great. Over a career spanning two decades, he's worked on albums by artists such as Gorillaz, Prince Paul, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, and Cornershop that had an immediate and widespread impact on the way other producers recorded music; one that trickled up to affect the pop charts' upper echelons, and established beyond reasonable doubt that Nakamura has some of the best ears in the industry. But his new project, Pillowfight, makes me wonder if he still knows what to do with them.
Pillowfight is Nakamura's collaboration with singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Emily Wells-- Kid Koala put Nakamura in contact with her after they performed together at a Canadian music festival. He provides the instrumentation, she sings, and if the setup suggests a post-modern, hip-hop-inflected reincarnation of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra, that's probably not an accident.
Wells' voice sometimes resembles Sinatra's when she sends it floating up over Nakamura's instrumental bed. Sometimes it sounds a little like a passable, fourth-generation copy of Billie Holiday in blues mode. But for much of the record she deploys a coy, breathy coo that more than anything else sounds like Lana Del Rey stripped of the elegant swoon and old-Hollywood drama that stopped Born to Die just coming off as camp. After years of collaborating with deeply compelling, oddball vocalists like Dr. Octagon and Mike Patton, Nakamura's decision to work with such an unremarkable performer is a disappointment.
The letdowns don't stop there. At this point in his career, Nakamura's biggest liability is his past success. When he first came on the scene, blending hip-hop's muscular percussion and collage-like production techniques with esoteric sounds-- like jazzy swinging-60s bachelor pad pop and a cheekily lowbrow crate-digger attitude-- was novel. But it turned out to be easily reproducible, and since then Nakamura's formula has been copied an untold number of times, and the mainstream pop success of producers who have run with his style (Danger Mouse being the biggest) has inspired even more imitators. At this point, Nakamura's once-sui generis sonic personality has been replicated past the point of cliche.
Nakamura has done little to advance his sound in that time, preferring instead to refine the one he already had. By this point it's been polished smooth enough that you can sit through the entirety of Pillowfight waiting for something unexpected to snag your attention before walking away disappointed 12 songs later. Every sonic element is in its proper place, and none of them misbehaves. The album projects a swanky modernism that the managers of medium-high-end wine bars and lounges might love, but other listeners will find its good manners stifling.
There are a few bright points scattered about. Pillowfight's strongest song, the album-opening "Used to Think", has a darkly dramatic atmosphere emphasized by a funereal garage rock organ, ominous strings, and one of the few performances on the record where Wells shows a little edge-- the generic "you" that she's singing to resolves into something resembling an actual person. Unfortunately, its meandering structure and the hokey backup vocals on the chorus sink the song. And Kid Koala shows up with his turntables a few times throughout the album to add a much-needed dose of dizzy whimsy.
Ultimately the record's main problem seems to be that Nakamura has simply become too good at being Dan the Automator, to the point where his recordings have started to sound like a very well executed copy of his past work. Pillowfight is technically flawless but thoroughly unexciting. Sounds great though.
