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Dec 14, 2010If there's a bundle of stereotypes preceding any singer-songwriter of Scandinavian extraction, it surely includes the following: glacial beauty, whispery vocals, tenderly picked guitars and perhaps a touch of glockenspiel or synth. Silje Nes's second album Opticks delivers all of the above, but that doesn't diminish its thoughtful loveliness.
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Dec 14, 2010Regardless of the tack she takes, Nes' music has the vulnerable freshness of winter thawing into spring--particularly on the lovely album-closer "Ruby Red"--and Opticks puts her in the very sweet spot between innocence and expertise.
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Dec 14, 2010Opticks is also more mature than her previous outing, which at times can seem like the happenstance work of an adorable child. It's clear that Silje Nes is coming into her own as an artist here.
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Dec 14, 2010In the end, Opticks sounds nothing like Norway, but it's still quite a trip. Artful, spooky, groovy, human, it sounds like anywhere and nowhere on Earth.
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Dec 14, 2010If you look at the incremental progress from Ames Room to Opticks, it's clear that this is the work of an artist who is still finding her way, and there is reason to believe that bolder, more immediately tuneful work will come in her future, hopefully without sacrificing the muted, low-key quality that makes her art so attractive and charming.
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Dec 14, 2010But subtle though it is, Tarwater's Bernd Jestram--who mixed the album--ensures that the imaginative details sparkle, so while Nes' world may at times sound familiar, it's still very much her own, a comforting and alluring one into which to retreat.