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There are so many elements to Naima Bock’s ‘Below a Massive Dark Land’ that it’s a wonder they can all work together, but wonder appears to be a common reaction to Bock’s music. That’s because of the risks she takes…it confirms her as a major songwriter.
Naima Bock’s 2022 solo debut, Giant Palm, was a bit of a bolt from the blue. The former Goat Girl bassist delivered a startling, strong collection of thoroughly modern folk songs that leaned into chamber pop, avant-rock, and bossa nova, which seemed a far cry from her post-punk roots. It was a departure, but perhaps it shouldn’t be much of a surprise: Bock was a member of experimentally-minded London-based folk collective Broadside Hacks, which also counts Goblin Band, Milkweed and Gwenifer Raymond amongst its alumni, and on Giant Palm, she collaborated with arranger Joel Burton, who, amongst other endeavours, has directed performances of Terry Riley’s minimalist masterpiece In C.
For her second album, Below a Massive Dark Land, her songwriting talent and her willingness to experiment with unconventional musical forms haven’t dimmed. If anything, Below a Massive Dark Land features an even wider range of styles and influences than its predecessor. She also decided to do all of her own arrangements, a leap into the dark, which was apparently aided by learning to play the violin. The result is an idiosyncratic, confident-sounding approach to music-making that seems to laugh in the face of the very notion of genre. The way the opening track, Gentle, scrolls easily through its various styles – calling up and jettisoning various instruments, shuffling melodies and moods – seems both gleeful and slightly frenzied, as if Bock is simultaneously finding a musical identity and mirroring the problems of personal identity that we all face increasingly more often in our fractured world of social media and Spotify playlists.
On lead single Kaley, she seems to settle on a big, clear, wide-eyed sound full of big horns and crisp guitars, then everything drops away in a moment of unexpected emotional weight before the instruments kick back in, thicker and more solid than ever. She has an impressive control over the emotional direction of a song: it’s all over Feed My Release, which sounds like the offspring of Cate Le Bon, Big Thief and Mount Eerie. The timing of her singing and the timbre of her voice sit perfectly with the rich, melancholy brass and open-book country-rock rhythm section. My Sweet Body is an uncanny swirl, another ageless-sounding song that touches on contemporary themes.
Bock is capable of channelling classic singer-songwriter tropes with ease, as on the loping, Laurel Canyon stylings of Lines, but she always manages to draw back or sidestep long before a song gets bogged down. Even the bleached, minimal, confessional folk of the bouzouki-infused Further Away contains the sweet surprise of a warm dollop of brass, while the jaunty Age hushes itself a couple of times before picking itself up with a chirpy, deliberately wonky coda. Moving is, for want of a better word, incredibly moving, showing off Bock’s voice at its most unadorned. The tiny, bright Star, which finishes the album, sounds like an anti-folk lullaby.
It’s all about the beautiful and surprising sonic details: the foregrounded vocal at the opening of Takes One splits and fractures into multiple colours, stained glass in song form, while the handclaps that puncture the same song change the mood subtly but completely. And that’s without mentioning the melancholy swath of violin and a folksy section of communal singing. There are so many elements that it’s a wonder they can all work together, but wonder appears to be a common reaction to Bock’s music. That’s because of the risks she takes: the songs on Below a Massive Dark Land play with the idea of structure in such an original way that they end up sounding like everything and nothing else on Earth. It’s an album full of antic juxtapositions and barely recognisable shapes, but it deals with serious themes, and it confirms Naima Bock as a major songwriter.
Below a Massive Dark Land (27th September 2024) Sub Pop Records.
Pre-Order: https://music.subpop.com/naimabock_belowamassivedarkland
Naima Bock has extensive UK tour dates lined up, as well as EU and several US dates, including the legendary Rhizome.
Naima Bock Tour Dates
26 Sep – Portsmouth @ Pie & Vinyl (instore) *
30 Sep – London @ Rough Trade West (instore) *
19 Oct – Birmingham @ Future Days Festival
21 Oct – Boston, MA @ Warehouse XI *
23 Oct – Philadelphia, PA @ Side Chapel (First Unitarian Church) *
25 Oct – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool *
26 Oct – Washington, DC @ Rhizome *
6 Nov – London @ St. Pancras Old Church + SOLD OUT
7 Nov – Bristol @ Jam Jar
8 Nov – Liverpool @ Leaf
9 Nov – Newcastle @ Cumberland Arms
10 Nov – Glasgow @ Mc Chuills
12 Nov – Leeds @ Hyde Park Book Club
13 Nov – Manchester @ Deaf Institute
14 Nov – Cambridge @ Storey’s Field Centre
16 Nov – Falmouth @ The Cornish Bank
17 Nov – Frome @ The Tree House
18 Nov – Exeter @ Cavern Club
20 Nov – Ipswich @ St Stephens Church
21 Nov – London @ The Ivy House
3 Dec – Lille, FR @ L ‘Aéronef
4 Dec – Brugge, BE @ Cactus Café
6 Dec – Haldern, DE @ Pop Bar
7 Dec – Hamburg, DE @ Nachstasyl
8 Dec – Berlin, DE @ Neu Zunkunft
10 Dec – Cologne, DE @ Subway
11 Dec – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso
12 Dec – Brussels, BE @ Botanique
13 Dec – Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire
+ Duo with Oliver Hamilton
* Solo
All other shows full band
Tickets are available here:
https://naimabock.com
