Last year I touted on these pages (it is a site, but you still have to flip the pages one way or the other) Michael Nau’s album Mowing (like the summer lawn) as a perfect summer record. So Michael is back (as is the summer) from down in Maryland and headed again for the West Coast, I guess with his latest one, Some Twist. So nothing has changed in that respect, what about the music?
On one side, nothing. Michael is in the same summery, optimistic mood, even if he’s writing and singing about something other people would feel there could be no optimism felt about. But that has a lot to do with your outlook on life. Also, Michael’s songs are at least as good and melodious as they have been and so is his voice and guitar playing. On the other, there is a change, and it is for the better. With Some Twist, Michael Nau just bettered the high quality of his Mowing - all the exhibited qualities just got better and make the new album an even more consistent whole.
Whether he’s talking about something that deserves a positive vibe (the opener and the single Good Thing or How You’re So Real), or maybe something that shouldn’t (Scumways or the closer Light That Ever), Nau’s sees something positive, or a solution to a hard situation or just plain hope, and covers it all with a light musical touch and a perfectly set music arrangement, whether it is a lightish Seventies California soul (I Root) or any of the singer/songwriter combinations that simply fit (Wonder). And it's still summer and their lawns. Only, in slight difference to Joni Mitchell those lawns are not hissing, there singing. Quietly and gently, requiring only a comfy lawn chair and a hefty pitcher of ice-cold lemonade.
Some Twist requires only a few above thing mentioned, with only a small task ahead while you listen to the album - you do have to perk up your ear to what Michael is saying (at least once in a while), because it is worth listening to: “I know it doesn’t make the world go round. They’re trying to tell that to my heart, what does and doesn’t matter” (Light That Ever). Michael Nau wishes you a happy summer ahead.
