The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

Baker's Dozen

Moments In The Sun: Nite Jewel's Favourite Albums
The Quietus , November 24th, 2021 12:07

Nite Jewel takes us through the albums that inspired her latest record No Sun, from Miles Davis to Cluster, via digressions on the importance of bad karaoke and Nietzschean philosophy

Njbd6_1637695968_resize_460x400

Woo – It’s Cosy Inside

I love the silliness of tracks called things like 'Purple Pussy’ and 'No More Telly’. I found this intensely relaxing. How did you find this album and what makes you relaxed?

This album makes me very relaxed! I found this album through a record store in LA or the Bay Area in 2004 or 5. Someone tipped me off to it and I just became obsessed with these two brothers! I would be listening to this record every time I would be tripping on drugs and have a comedown, and I would listen to it over and over and over again until I was asleep! I would listen to it in New York when things were too noisy outside to sleep or do work so it became very functional to me. But I came to love the way it was composed. And then eventually I was telling so many people about this record it started to gain traction, and when I first went to London I could’t stop talking about then, and my friend was like, “why don’t you start a fan club, no one cares about this, Jesus” and basically I did! And their records became reissued so I ended up getting to talk to the two of them and ask them how they made it!

It’s all these crazy guitar patterns that he’s running through a sequencer, and he’s just letting his brother improvise, and capturing everything. They were living in a flat in London and everything had to be so quiet, so they would just play together. The cover of the album is inspired by their family home, there is an image of their mom and cat. Everything about this record is perfect to me. They are great guys. This record is an ambient masterpiece, in my mind.

This is your second or third bedroom album - what do you like so much about that sound?

I think, to be honest, I’ve always wanted to be an ambient composer, I have certain dreams as a musician. One is to be a guitar shredder, like the solo guitarist in some kind of rock band, doing this freaking guitar solo for like four verses, that’s one dream. The other is to be a really killer ambient composer, but I don’t have the patience for it, because I want to start singing. I really admire ambient composers. There are a lot of mediocre composers out there, because it’s easy to make. Spotify is even making it with algorithms.