Search - Novi Split :: Pink in the Sink

"Distinctly potent pop nuggets. The songwriting is calm but deceptively intricate--the lyrics, meanwhile, are heartfelt and emotional. At times the band sounds like Guided By Voices, while at others they tend towards Sparklehorse tendencies." -- INDIEVILLE "Elliott Smith is gone, but Novi Split has skillfully taken his place as the new `great acoustic hope,' returning honesty, passion, and skillful songwriting to the acoustic guitar." -- INDEPENDENT CLAUSES "Novi Split prominently features two members of Kind of like Spitting, and while it's clearly not exactly the same music, the general sound should be familiar to fans of the other band. It's a similarly stripped-down style of nakedly emotional music--the kind of stuff that all the pop-punkers with shaggy hair have given such a bad name." -- IN YOUR EAR David Jerkovich has done something rare. Over the last three years, while variously working as a longshoreman and a touring band member, he has created a radiant jewel of an album in near obscurity. Well, okay, he is an outright sensation in Adelaide, Australia, and he recorded the imminently likable debut Keep Moving on Sunset Alliance, but damn! This is the kind of album that can cure today's hyper-short attention span the nation over. The songs just don't get old. Why? It's that je ne sais quois that beguiles every hopeful songwriter. Is Jerkovich the next Dylan or Bright Eyes or Springsteen? No. Does he have a magnetic, classic songwriting style? You bet. Does he have more raw musical talent in his pinky than most So-Cal hipsters have in their fashionably clad bodies? Probably. But Novi Split is not about differences. It is an olive branch. And for all its meticulous production, the songs still feel simple, reliable, and refreshing. Themes of infatuation, love, addiction, betrayal, co-dependence, and isolation are treated with tenderness and the clarity of hindsight. Jerkovich has performed as one half of Kind of Like Spitting, and is now a secret weapon in L.A.'s Ill Lit. He has learned a lot from traversing the country's stages, and while his amiable demeanor is a foil for other songwriters, he holds his own songs close to the chest until they are 100% done.