Nightmares on Wax - Thought So... (Album)
Nightmares on Wax’s Thought So… came out in perfect timing. With the weather heating up we’re in for some lovely long, hot, summer nights, but spinning this album in the background will keep things nice and chilled. This has been a big year for trip hop, with the genre heavyweights Portishead delighting everyone by putting out Third a few months back, and Tricky keeping on strong with the wonderful Knowle West Boy. But Thought So… hasn’t been talked about nearly as much as these massive releases, and on listening to the album perhaps there is reason for this. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the record – it does everything it’s supposed to. It’s hypnotic, soothing, organic, and as smooth as honey. There’s enough groove and soul and beat to distinguish the tracks, but for the most part listeners will find the songs blurring into the background with not much there to really jump out and grab you.
To put the album in context, it was written by George Evelyn, aka E.A.S.E (Experience A Sample Expert) and his Nightmares on Wax band members on a road trip from Leeds to Ibiza as Evelyn was relocating to a new home. Inspired by the changing landscape around them, the road trip gave the band a chance to get together, throw ideas around and play music without distraction or any specific vision. Evelyn then spent a while in his new home studio in Ibiza playing around with the recorded results of the journey, adding his trademark beats to the mix and inevitably letting the beauty and vibe of his new surroundings filter in to the record.
The album fuses a bunch of musical styles together and unites them with that constant familiar trip hop beat, from the dance hall sound of 195lbs, to the real reggae groove of Bringin It and the sparse electronic melodies of Moretime. Thought So… definitely needs to be heard through headphones to get the full experience, and to understand what Evelyn was trying to achieve, which seems to simply be to communicate an inner peace and love for the people and environment surrounding him. Otherwise, this record fades very easily into the background because the tracks are possibly slightly too long, and they are just so soothing, you might find yourself drifting to sleep. While another studio album, perhaps with a little more vision and experimenting, would be wonderful, Nightmares on Wax would also do well to move on to creating music for film soundtracks, like Massive Attack did. Listen to this album late on a summer evening, through headphones, after a few glasses of wine.
