Nicolay- City Lights Vol. 2: Shibuya

Sometimes bleak, sometimes abundant, Nicolay’s signature mode is to paint an emotional landscape through beautiful groupings of sounds, making the listener feel as though you are inside of his journey.

In the case of City Lights Vol. 2, the journey is one to Shibuya, Japan, where the absence of lyrics and the emphasis on layered instrumentation serves the purpose of bringing you to his place of intent.

Nicolay’s keyboard sampler melodies are opulent, profound, and sometimes melancholic. On songs like “Rain in Ueno Park,” a feeling of entranced nostalgia is created from the sounds of rapid rainfall, giving off the visual of being alone in the city where the rain dissipates just as it approaches dusk.

The more upbeat songs like “Saturday Night” and “Wake Up In Another Life” are paired with house beats and vocals from Carlitta Durand, whose gentle and airy vocals are dreamlike and familiar.

The guitar and twinkling keys-laden “Shibuya Epilogue” makes for a perfect ending. Definitely a slight departure from the soul/hip-hop works with Kay and even joint projects as Foreign Exchange with Phonte, The Netherlands-bred producer has brought us yet another soulful masterpiece that captures the essence of what he is best at: music that is conceptual, soundtrack-like, and allows us to romanticize being introspective and exploratory somewhere completely foreign.

-Boyuan Gao

Label: Foreign Exchange

Release Date: 9/15/2009