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June 03, 2008
You've Got Such a Nice Face, Why You Wanna Be So Mysterious?
I've been a bit heavy on the 7" record posts lately, but there's something in the air, and I am but your humble recorder. This entry will be light on exposition at least, as there's nothing to tell. The handsome sleeve above is the only concrete info I've got about Nice Face. The MySpace info cubbard is bare, and even the single's distributors, the Brooklyn aesthetes behind the unreasonably hip Sacred Bones label are reluctant to provide the one man band's real name. The mystery is perhaps for the best. It allows us picture some gruesomely scarred golem with an ironic name seeking sonic revenge on all those who've spurned his abrasive keyboard love. As opposed to, you know, some dude with a beard who lives in Park Slope.
Nice Face - "Hidden Automatic"
My preferred side to the nicely featured one's first glob of vinyl is the killer "B." While there's no shortage of laser noises bouncing around the crinkled edges of "Hidden Automatic" 's tin foil mix, a steady, cascading guitar line that keeps it from pure burbling neon cacophony. The vocals are so warped by fuzz that you'll be lucky to make out the title when sung in the chorus. But there's a strong suggestion of a fine anthemic tune here, both in the vocal melody and the overstuffed 4-tracks it was presumably recorded onto. Maybe if you peeled those onion layers back you'd be tearing up at an alarming lack of substance. As I said before, I can't really tell if we're hiding lyrical gems or junk (or "automatic" for that matter). But lack of clarity can be seductive, I say. Whether a sasquatch or a sex-kitten is beginning to emerge from Nice Face's fog, it's not yet clear. This primal swoon has me hooked into giving our mystery man another couple tracks to further enlighten.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at June 3, 2008 07:00 PM
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