by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Following up last year’s Wind City Airport, Chicago’s experimental pop polymaths Nature’s Neighbor are set to return with another full length, the eclectic and worldly, O t h e r s i d e. Due out May 14th, the album truly has no boundaries, rippling from synthetic laptop-pop to progressive folk and warped R&B with everything else in between touched upon for good measure. Nature’s Neighbor mastermind Mike Walker teams up once again with frequent collaborators Terrill Mast and Seth Engel (Options, Great Deceivers), as well as Benni Perkins, Brandon Studer, and Perry Cowdery, to create an album conceived and developed during lock-down that in turn sounds as free and adventurous as they come.
Having shared the first two singles, “Perch Privileges” and “After The Dark,” we get another glimpse into the wide word of O t h e r s i d e, the dynamics of which really can’t be understated. The album nearly has the feel of a compilation with genres thrown out the window, creating instead in any capacity to share the emotions and heartbreak contemplations at Nature Neighbor’s core. “Shades of Yesteryear” is a silky, smoky, and languid, a song that’s built for a sultry lounge act scene cut from a black and white noir film. Benni Perkins takes lead vocals for this one, adding a beautiful restrained performance that remains commanding over with the atmospheric post-rock meets basement jazzy sound. In the song’s final minute it takes a pretty big turn, moving into a crescendo that moves to a different groove.
Speaking about the track, Walker shared:
“Like all the songs on O t h e r s i d e, “Shades of Yesteryear” was written during the first wave of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Terrill and Benni put the bare bones together in Virginia and then emailed it to me to add vocals and electric guitar. Terrill then decided that the outro needed real drums and so he reached out to Seth who was happy to do it. Because it was still early into the pandemic and COVID testing was not yet widely available, I communicated with Seth via FaceTime from my home while Seth cut the drum parts at Pallet Sound. Seth propped his phone up on a chair by the drum kit so I could watch him play. If you listen closely you can hear me say "That was really great." right after Seth's last cymbal crash.
The lyrics were mostly written by Benni Perkins who made their Nature's Neighbor debut with this album. The lyrics are based on a short story that Terrill and Benni wrote that is about "dead souls from the pandemic invading the bodies of the living." But if you dig a bit deeper, it is also about trying to get over being haunted by your past.”