All the elements

Musician Kody Nielson has changed tack again for his new album. Photo supplied
Musician Kody Nielson has changed tack again for his new album. Photo supplied
Amid the cool electronic textures and funk grit of Kody Nielson's latest album lies a jazz underbelly. As Shane Gilchrist discovers, the Kiwi musical adventurer has gone back to the future under a new moniker, Silicon. 

Former hell-raising punk-rocker, singer and award-winning songwriter; a jazz-head who can turn his hand to slick guitar, drums, keyboards and other instruments; and a painter: Kody Nielson is a man of many coats.

Take Nielson's new album, Personal Computer, released under his latest nom de plume, Silicon.

It's a definite change of hue from previous project Opossom, whose sole album, 2012's Electric Hawaii, was flecked with well crafted guitar-flavoured indie-pop.

Instead, there is a touch of back-to-the future about Personal Computer, its mix of funk and disco butting up against ethereal, electronic sonic textures.

Yet listen closely and you'll also discover more than a dash of jazz in the sometimes subtle clusters of chords.

Certainly, there is no autopilot rendering of Nielson's previous musical outcomes.

Got a hankering for the Mint Chicks' punkish, twisted alt-pop, which won the band three Tui awards in 2007?

Then don't look to Personal Computer.

Want Opossom? Buy that album.

Combine an overview of Nielson's various career turns with the fading reports of his stage antics as lead singer of the Mint Chicks (sometimes petulant, often energetic, always entertaining) and there is a suggestion of deliberate contrariness within his character.

However, perhaps it is more to do with simple musical thirst.

Nielson says it is a ''bit of both''.

Whatever keeps him inspired, he will run with it.

''That can be anything,'' he says.

''I want to be able to do anything I want within music. I don't want to paint myself into a corner.''

On that subject, Nielson's artistic endeavours haven't been limited to music.

Personal Computer was created in bursts, Nielson bouncing between painting and writing songs. It helped keep him fresh, one informing the other.

''I'd do a painting, then jump back into recording. If I couldn't get an idea across through the music, I'd go back to painting.

''It was kind of meditative,'' says Nielson, who completed a series of 29 paintings of an ''Emoji'' icon, which form the artwork for Personal Computer and will later be exhibited in New York and London.

''The artwork is very simple and repetitive. I like the idea of mass production, or playing with the idea that although something might seem perfect, actually there are imperfections ... that there are still human elements to it.''

That ethos spilled into his songs, too.

Employing an approach he used before the Mint Chicks formed, Nielson combines samples, textural soundscapes and loop-based phrases.

But the key trick is that he staples these electronic elements to a framework that is warm and soulful.

''Before I was in bands, I would try to use samples and such. Using those sorts of tools again gave me a bit more freedom versus the approach of writing music for a band.

''I did want it to be quite human but also have this feeling of coldness. I don't know if `scary' is quite the right word ... perhaps unease,'' he explains.

''Personal Computer is meant to be a plain, generic title, in a way ... It's about the isolation we have in our lives, like being connected to the internet: people have more access to things, but are more distant despite that.

''I definitely wanted to be emotional in the songwriting, in terms of harmony. I still like music that has an emotional feeling to it.

''It's not a completely dark and serious album. It's not melancholic. There is a ridiculousness to it as well.''

One such example is Little Dancing Baby, a result of attempts to calm Nielson and partner Bic Runga's 2-year-old daughter.

(Runga, who also has a son from a previous relationship, is pregnant with the couple's second child.)

''It was one of those songs where I was trying to do some work. I was singing it to her and she was bouncing around. I just started recording it when she was there. It was entertaining enough for her that I was able to continue working,'' Nielson says, adding much of Personal Computer was recorded in the small hours.

''A lot of the time I'd try to squeeze recording or writing in when I could.''

• Nielson's growing resume of studio work for others played a hand in Personal Computer, too.

He produced Runga's excellent fourth album, Belle, released in 2011; more recently, he teamed up with Portland-based brother Ruban's Unknown Mortal Orchestra, co-writing and co-producing the album Multi-Love, released earlier this year.

Such assignments, while providing an important buffer between Nielson's previous projects, including Opossom and a recent Afro-jazz incarnation that resulted in an EP, added a few more tricks to an already well-stocked bag.

As Nielson puts it: ''I always learn things from different people''.

''With this album, I was trying to work with really simple ideas. It was also good to not have to run any ideas past other people.

''I had a vague idea of how I wanted the album to sound. I just worked away until it became more cohesive and fitted together. I always have a lot of songs going on at the same time, some of which are more finished than others.

''There's jazz as well as funk. I suppose there is that Miles Davis influence, although he played so many styles over the years. I think the album has more to do with that '70s stuff.''

The ''multi-instrumentalist'' tag has long been attached to Nielson, sometimes with little definition.

Thus, it begs the question: did he play everything on Multi-Love a la Prince or Beck?

''I did,'' he confirms, ''although my dad plays a few horns at the end and Bic sings a backing vocal on one song. But it is basically me.''

It is hard to ignore the technical ability of Personal Computer: from the high-tempo drumming in I Can See Paradise, to the fast, fluid guitar lines of Burning Sugar, the keyboard touches of God Emoji and the chocolate-caramel vocals that add more than a whiff of smouldering soul to the whole shebang.

''Because the songs are my own, I knew how I wanted to put them together. It was out of necessity, I guess.''

Nielson has already taken his Silicon vehicle on the road.

Tired of the hassle (and considerable expense) involved when touring with a band, he recruited Kiwi multi-instrumentalist Julien Dyne to help him put flesh on the bones of his songs at gigs in Auckland, London, Amsterdam and Paris a few months ago.

Signed to British outfit Domino, which is releasing Personal Computer via sub-label Weird World, Neilson has a few more shows scheduled, though there's no big national tour planned.

''I'm playing at the Flying Out [The Other's Way] festival in early September, then in Australia. I'm working on other stuff as well. I'm trying to do some more writing as well as mix some other bands.

''Music is what I know so I try to stay busy on some sort of project. I don't want to get out of the habit of making music. It's fun.''

 


The album

• Personal Computer by Silicon, aka Kody Nielson, is released on Friday.


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