Search - Nick Jaina :: Narrow Way

"[Jaina's songs] are carved from nostalgia, but with polished, adult themes. His voice is urgent yet ultra-melodic." -- The Oregonian "The blend of clarinets, accordion, violin, keyboards, random percussion, and guitar sounds like the anthems made for the most glorious hobo nation on earth--sort of Tom Waits playing at a kangaroo carnival, with brief interruptions for the funeral of Paul Simon and Elvis Perkins." -- Seattle Weekly 2008 will have seen the release of two Nick Jaina albums. The first, in the spring, was Wool, an album of piano ballads and lullabies. Now, from Hush Records, comes his second album of the year: A Narrow Way, a full-band album featuring aggressively memorable songs recorded in a unique way in order to capitalize on the energy of the live performance skills of Jaina's band. This album was played entirely by ten musicians in the same room at the same time, all mixed live to 1/4" analog tape. If one person out of the ten missed a note or played the wrong part, the whole take had to be done over. This lack of a safety net gave the recordings a heightened sense of focus and purpose, similar to the manner in which albums were recorded in the fifties and sixties, before the Beatles inspired everyone to overthink everything. On A Narrow Way, every instrument leaps off the tape with immediacy and humanity. Meanwhile, the lyrics deal with the narrow path that people must take to do right in the world. There is fear all around--fear of being different, fear of being the same--and in the middle is the narrow way, a small path that may be hard to stay on, but that leads to very good things.