A great artist releasing an album is always a good thing, but when new material comes at a machine-gun pace (hello Ryan Adams), it can sometimes detract from your relationship with their art.
Listeners need time to acquaint themselves with an album, to let their perception of and relationship with the tracks evolve. Some days you like one song, other days, not so much. Your favourites change on a regular basis until the album is cemented into your collection and finds its own place in your collection and your life.
Nightmares on Wax, or nowadays, a solo George Evelyn, gets it right when it comes to the frequency of his releases. True, it’s been four years since his last full-length offering, which is a long wait for some.
But for others, this has provided the time to get a real feel for his tracks’ complex moods and layers. It also gives the impression that exploration, experimentation and quality have been the driving forces behind an album’s creation.
Plus, it’s fair to say that Evelyn has been busy, acting as musical consultant and producer for an array of respected artists (including Mozez, who features heavily on Feelin’ Good) and tending to his own label, WAX ON Records.
The brilliant thing about Nightmares on Wax tracks is the difficulty you come up against when describing what you’re listening to. You are forced to dig deeper down, to pull songs apart by genre, or by mood or by instrument. Ultimately, however, the only way to communicate what the tracks are and what they do is to pass them on.
Much like the Feelin’ Good album artwork, both colourful and monochrome, mixing graphic art with photo imagery, the album achieves a natural inclusiveness and aims to welcome anyone into its domain.
This attempt to encompass a wide range of sounds is an Evelyn trademark, but never has he managed to get the balance so harmonised as on Feelin’ Good.
So many genres, styles, tempos, instruments and vocalists are given space to shine in the narrative, but none ever feel out of place or in competition.
The slinky, Portishead-esque ‘Master Plan’ could be a spy movie soundtrack, while ‘Now is the Time’ provides an involuntary prompt to get dancing and seems to literally bounce through the air with its reggae, carnival-esque feel. ‘There 4U’ delivers the blissed-out loved-up chapter of the album, while ‘Eye (Can’t See)’ and ‘Tapestry’ are indicative of the exhaustive layers and range of sounds Evelyn has managed to marry here.
Feelin’ Good does what it promises, as it attempts to condense, simplify and offer up an artistic vision, years of work and discovery in one accessible, ultra-relaxed album. Presented so simply, yet so careful and complex in its composition, Feelin’ Good gently constructs a wound-down, ambient haven that will provide the perfect backdrop for summer house parties, get-togethers and chilled-out meetups the world over.
Release Date 09/09/2013 (Warp Records)
