When prolific experimentalist Zac Nelson reached out to Styles Upon Styles Records it was a letter containing three albums of original material, an expansive body of work that purged all the nooks and crannies of Nelson’s creative neurosis. Of the demos came New Once, a nine-track collection of outlier-pop.
Lead single “Some Are This” is an early riser of pseudoscientific indifference, playfully mocking the casual California astrologist casting kismet on the shape of the moon. The carefree nature of the song, spouting platitudes like “silly dog barking at the moon”, is amplified by the polyphonic flourishes and islander steel drums. In the spirit of pseudo-isms, Nelson’s “Some Are This” can be heard with a namaste or hakuna matata, or the knowing nod of cynicism. In either read there is impassivity, but “Some Are This” not heard as a single but in the sequencing of the record is a rare, stress free glimmer and will have the listener beckoning for its grace to return.
Zac Nelson’s New Once LP is out June 16 on SUS Records.
