Oak Island (Nightlands album)
| Oak Island | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by Nightlands | ||||
| Released | January 21, 2013 | |||
| Genre | Dream pop, indie rock | |||
| Length | 33:02 | |||
| Label | Secretly Canadian (SC241) | |||
| Producer | Dave Hartley | |||
| Nightlands chronology | ||||
| ||||
Oak Island is a studio album by Nightlands, which is the solo project of Dave Hartley. Released on January 21, 2013 on Secretly Canadian,[1] it was positively received by critics, with Heather Phares of Allmusic giving it 4.5/5 stars and writing that "Despite Nightlands' scientific approach, Oak Island doesn't sound sterile or too calculated; instead, Hartley revisits the innocence of the past with sophistication, like seeing the places you went when you were 17 with new eyes."[2]
Production and release
Oak Island was recorded by Nightlands' primary artist Dave Hartley sporadically throughout 2010 and 2011, largely in Hartley's bedroom in Philadelphia.[3] On his new album, recorded on and off over the last couple of years, Hartley has refined his approach., and it was released as a CD, LP, and digital download on Secretly Canadian on January 21, 2013. While a number of guest composers and musicians took part in the recording process, Nightlands' primary musician Dave Hartley contributed the bulk of the compositions and vocals, and played instruments such as an Arp 2600, bass, multiple types of guitar including lap steel, bongos, drums, a Hammond B3, an omnichord, a trumpet, and other percussion. He was assisted in engineering by Jeff White and several others.[2]
Reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 70/100[4] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [2] |
| Pitchfork | 7.7/10[5] |
| PopMatters | 7/10[3] |
| Consequence of Sound | (positive)[6] |
| CMJ | (positive)[7] |
| "Like Forget the Mantra, Oak Island was recorded in [Dave Hartley's] Philadelphia bedroom, and a sleepy vibe remains. In fact, the pace is slowed down on the new album, the album filled with a warm, nostalgic sensibility. With a couple of exceptions, this is mostly quiet, contemplative music for warm firesides on snowy nights. But the innovation here is that Oak Island has a clearer structure both in its songs and as an album, and finds new levels of intimacy in its less abstract approach." |
| — Matt Messana for PopMatters (2013)[3] |
The album was generally well-received,[4] and received slighter higher scores than Nightlands' last album Forget the Mantra.[5][2] Pitchfork wrote positively about the album's blending of diverse genres, explaining that "'Born To Love' is a slow dance on the lido deck, 'I Fell in Love With a Feeling' boasts a revved-up beat and emotional yearning that puts it within the Springsteen-to-Twin Shadow lineage of pouty motorcycle heroics, while the stacked ELO harmonies and nerdy horns cut against the machismo... 'Rolling Down The Hill' works itself into an Afro-funk frenzy while the stately 'Other Peoples Pockets' is nearly hymnal. It's played straight and, as such, is paradoxically weirder than what came before." The review concludes that "Nightlands have created something that's utterly self-contained."[5]
Wrote Dan Jackson of the publication CMJ, with lyrics Hartley is "crafting an imagined space, his own cubby-hole of a universe assembled from crumpled Bowie posters, faded Asimov paperbacks and busted Cronenberg VHS tapes. Like most nostalgia-based fantasies, his frame of reference is related to adolescence but not defined by it."[7] Popmatters praised Hartley's vocal delivery and layering, and wrote that many of the songs' lyrics "find Hartley looking back to times, places and people he once knew. In other hands, this focus on the distant past could have become cloying, but Hartley’s lyrics are personal without falling into cliché, and the lush instrumentation generally avoids easy sentimentality."[3]
Track listing
All songs composed by Dave Hartley unless otherwise noted.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Time and Place" | 3:04 | |
| 2. | "So Far So Long" | 4:17 | |
| 3. | "You're My Baby" | 3:56 | |
| 4. | "Nico" | 4:22 | |
| 5. | "So It Goes" | 3:16 | |
| 6. | "Born To Love" | 3:47 | |
| 7. | "I Fell In Love With A Feeling" | 2:14 | |
| 8. | "Rolling Down The Hill" | 3:17 | |
| 9. | "Other Peoples Pockets" | Dave Hartley, Maryanne Doman | 2:58 |
| 10. | "Looking For Rain" | 1:51 |
Personnel
The following is a list of personnel who contributed to Oak Island:[2]
- Primary contributors
- Nightlands - primary artist
- David Hartley - Additional Music, Arp 2600, Bass, Bongos, Composer, Drums, Engineer, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Baritone), Hammond B3, Lap Steel Guitar, Omnichord, Percussion, Trumpet, Vocals
- Composers and performers
- Heather Woods Broderick - Group Member, Vocals
- Birdie Busch - Group Member
- Todd Starlin - Group Member
- Eliza Hardy Jones - Group Member, Hammond B3
- Nick Krill - Group Member, Vocals
- Tommy Bendel - Percussion
- Robbie Bennett - Arp Omni, Juno, Keyboards
- Brian Christinzio - Vocals
- Maryanne Doman - Composer, Dulcimer, Omnichord
- Adam Granduciel - Guitar (Electric)
- Charlie Hall - Vox Continental
- Michael Johnson - Drums, Engineer, Eventide
- Mary Lattimore - Harp
- Joseph Shabason - Saxophone
- The Sighborg Singers - Choir/Chorus
- Eric Slick - Drums
- Severin Tucker - Lap Steel Guitar
- Sound engineering and post-production
- Jeff White - Engineer
- Paul Gold - Mastering
- Brian McTear - Mixing
- Robyn Muse - Artwork
- Catharine Maloney - Photography
- Daniel Murphy - Design
References
- ↑ "Oak Island". Secretly Canadian. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Phares, Heather (January 21, 2013). "Oak Island review". Allmusic. Retrieved 2014-12-30.
- 1 2 3 4 Messana, Matt (February 7, 2013). "Oak Island". PopMatters. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
- 1 2 "Oak Island". Metacritic. January 21, 2013. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
- 1 2 3 Cohen, Ian (January 21, 2013). "Oak Island". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
- ↑ Geffen, Sasha (February 5, 2013). "Oak Island". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 2015-05-10.
- 1 2 Jackson, Dan (January 25, 2013). "Oak Island". CMJ. Retrieved 2015-05-10.