Mike Nigro - Low Light (2023)

Sometimes a record crystalizes a sensibility rather than forging a new one - it can be difficult from up close to see the evolution of an artist’s work but our luck is that we get to listen. Low Light is Oxtail label head Mike Nigro’s 8th full-length record, and the sonic signatures of Nigro’s practice are all present: rippling arpeggios, cloud-soft chords, self-schooled sound design in the 00s American noise vernacular, and a tonal sensibility indebted to the 70s kosmische canon. Low Light conjures fresh magic from these familiar touchstones; this is the sound of an artist in tune with their materials and purpose. Grounded music; arranged in the stars.

At the risk of waxing rhapsodic or ruining the thrill of discovery—I’ll stick to the highlights and leave it to the listener to turn the remaining stones. Curtains open with “No Rush/Patchwork” as long, slow filters hesitate across the stereo spectrum and gradually clear out the fog. “Sunshowers” features cascading and interlocking snares of melody, latching onto one another and de-coupling just as quickly. The warm center of the record is “Argyle Park Place” where the organic commingles with the artificial–chopped and skewered granular piano draped over a dense chord bed and the environmental evening-songs of NSW. “Hi Viz” wanders into denser, more remote terrain, illuminating a darker path not yet entirely explored and inhabited by FM sprites and gleaming metallic mallets. The sense of place deepens with another highlight “Pray for Rain”. This is composition that plots the geography of its existence, inscribes its boundaries and then, inch by inch, slowly blossoms from within. Rather than advancing on the linear plane–we go out in all directions. Sit back and watch the map expand.

- R. Coast