Shuffle: Layers and Textures Fill Niights New Album 'Hellebores'
By Amanda Rabinowitz • Feb 14, 2019
It took Niights three years to perfect their new album, 'Hellebores' out Feb. 15.
KRISTEN LAUBER
Cleveland indie rock band Niights has spent three years perfecting the follow-up to its debut album. Lead singer and guitarist Jenna Fournier says they decided to release 'Hellebores' in two parts -- half dream pop, half metal.
Shuffle: Niights
Niights has been a staple in Cleveland's music scene for much of the last decade. Fournier wrote most of the band's debut album, 2013's 'Whisper'. After two international tours, Niights signed with Tragic Hero Records and re-released Whisper in 2015. Nearly four years later, the group is releasing 'Hellebores'.
Fournier says making the new album was a more collaborative and challenging process.
"We had sent the files and scratch tracks to our bandmates who were living in different states. And they wrote their parts and then we flew them in and they tracked in the studio having never played the songs with us live." The other members of the band are Frankie Maraldo, Jake Chandler and Jeremy Dodge.
Fournier says the band spent lots of time texturing the songs. She compares the process to painting.
"Instead of drawing a sketch and filling in the lines we have this approach where we lay down 20 layers of paint and then scrape back what we don't want."
'We have this approach where we lay down 20 layers of paint and then scrape back what we don't want'
Fournier is also a visual artist and combines her art with her music.
"I've been dabbling in animation and making videos and content clips. I like to try to have an aesthetic for the band that's a little bit of fantasy and dreamy, shoe gaze look that's been around for a while but make it unique to us with our artwork as well."
The band describes its sound as shoe gaze and dream pop, drawing on influences from bands like Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine.
"With dream pop, you're going to have a lot of layers of washy-affected guitars and a lot of the time it's going to be louder in the mix. And the same thing with shoe gaze. It's a textural wall of sound. And the vocals might be a little more buried than what you're used to in traditional radio rock."
Niights' new album is being released in two parts. The first half of the album has a more pop sound, including the catchy single, "So Into You."
"That song had been released for this solo EP that I did exclusively for Japan," Fournier said. "I wrote that as this little acoustic thing, and [I said] what if we put some big guitars and turned it into a Niights song? I love how it turned out."
The second half of the album is heavier with loud guitar riffs.
"About five years ago I started getting more interested in pedals and effects and the noise and the music side of things instead of the words and the storytelling side of things," Fournier said. "And as you grow as a technical musician, you kind of want to show that off a little bit."
The band has seen success with audiences in Japan, where shoe gaze music is very popular. Fournier says the band got the attention of Japan's 2670 Records which signed them to a distribution deal. This August, Niights will return for its fourth tour to Japan.
During February and March, Niights will be on tour with Elvis Depressedly, with a show at Mahall's in Lakewood Feb. 27.
Niights
Shoe Gaze music
Dream pop music
Shuffle: Honey-Making Soul Singer Wesley Bright Steps Away From His Sweet Center Stage
By Amanda Rabinowitz • Feb 7, 2019
Ben Willis
Popular Northeast Ohio soul band Wesley Bright and The Honeytones is saying goodbye, for now. The group that's been performing for much of the last decade plays its final show this weekend before taking a long break.
Shuffle: New Book Examines Kent's Influence on Music History
By Kabir Bhatia • Jan 24, 2019
J. ROSS BAUGHMAN / KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
A new book coming out next week takes a look at the role Kent played in music history. "Small Town, Big Music" tells the story of the nationally known bands who performed at Kent State as well as the bands that made up the local music scene.
Shuffle: Akron Teen Kofi Boakye Plays the Keys to Success
By Amanda Rabinowitz & Brittany Nader • Oct 3, 2019
KOFI BOAKYE
This story was originially published on Jan. 31, 2019.
At 15 years old, Kofi Boakye was the youngest black pianist to be enrolled at the University of Akron School of Music's jazz program.
Now, at 19 years old, he's starting his journey to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.