It’s always been easy to hear that
Nite Jewel's Ramona Gonzalez approached her music from the artistic side of the equation rather than a strictly musical or emotional direction. Her debut album and the singles previous to this EP have maintained a hard-to-swallow distance between Gonzalez and the listener; a wall of artifice that made it easy to admire the interesting sounds she conjured -- using old synths, broken-sounding drum machines, and her artless warble of a voice -- but made it hard to fall in love with the songs. On
Am I Real?, Gonzalez takes a step closer to a fully realized musical experience by removing some of the murk from the production and by crafting songs that have feeling, dynamics, and the occasional hook. One song, “Forget You & I,” almost rocks even. Overall, the six tracks on the EP have an immediacy and punch that her early work lacked, yet still retain plenty of mystery and magic in the mix. It’s a much better balance of sound and vision, and the record contains some of her best written, best sung songs yet. “Am I Real?” shows the influence of her work with
Dâm-Funk (sounding like a
Teena Marie album cut), “We Want Our Things” is a sweetly sad ballad with lovely, interlocking synth parts, and “Another Horizon” has a great vocal hook and perfectly programmed percussion. Only “Falling Far” fails to impress, as it drifts aimlessly for too long.
Am I Real? shows that
Nite Jewel isn’t just a novelty act or an art project. There is potential for Gonzalez to create something truly magnificent if she keeps heading along this path. ~ Tim Sendra