by Patrick Pilch (@hosewater0)
Philadelphia-by-New York musician Nina Ryser treads new ground on her Dear Life debut Water Giants. For the first time, the DIY mainstay journeys outside her modest home studio with the help of producer Lucas Knapp and a slew of regional talent for a surreal pop voyage beyond the ego. Ryser builds a monument on the keyboard dream plane with the dilatant Water Giants, her most dynamic and instinctive work to date.
Last year’s I Miss My Dog was an impromptu elegy recorded in response to the tragic passing of Ryser’s late pup. That collection’s from-the-gut writing process informs the instinctive and expansive Water Giants, as the spirit of Billy Boy marches on. Grief, love, illness, and addiction are openly embedded in Ryser’s reflexive and unforced approach. While her uninhibited creativity has always felt present and true, these new songs find her writing like no one’s looking.
The finest example of this unabated practice can be found on the garbage-pile piano ballad “Beauty in Grime.” Many a man’s trash is distilled into Ryser’s treasured meditation on a transient mausoleum, one collectively built and routinely discarded by next Tuesday. “Beauty in Grime” is straightforward and unpretentious, following a verse-chorus-verse pattern under Ryser’s plan-canceling observations on a stack of “former objects of desire/growing higher and higher.” It’s a modest, stripped back moment singling out the musician’s clear-headed command as both a compelling lyricist and effective arranger.
While Water Giants contains plenty of could-be singles, Ryser’s pop movements remain uncanny in their delivery. Atonal synth melodies work against the uptempo grain of “Why Do I Ask,” while an empathetic din unwinds on “Underestimate,” a song that sounds like a scrapped idea before revealing its deeply melodic string section core. The end of “Underestimate,” along with Nino Soberon’s (@) protean cello arrangements on “Piggy Boys” and “Dust Girls,” feel respiratory, like the involuntary churn of Ryser’s creativity.
Contributions from Victoria Rose (Brittle Brian, @) add florid dimension to “Things I Claim,” while Eli Kleinsmith’s violin on “You Are What You Eat” supplies the album with a grounding penultimate pause before a surreal, back-masked finale. There’s a remarkably delicate balance to Water Giants, a bold collaborative leap for a musician as attuned to her singular craft as Ryser. As a member of Palberta, Data, and Fire Roast, the multi-instrumentalist’s talent and penchant for subversive pop should come as no surprise, but Water Giants redefines what it means for Nina Ryser to let go.