Search - William Nowik :: Notes from the Underground

William Nowik is the Real Deal

resophone | Seoul, Korea | 04/19/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In an era of sameness and lameness in the scene that is "popular music", when someone steps in and cuts through with a sound that transcends, it is really an event, a turning point --something to stop and take notice of. But in the case of William Nowik's most recent release, Notes from the Underground, it is more than that: it is also a rare, maybe even once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear the entire history of a world-historic phenomenon -- rock and roll -- distilled into an hour and seven minutes containing eleven parcels of crystalline sonic wonder.

Why "crystalline"? I don't know who William Nowik really is, but I do know that the man who made the music on this disc is uncompromisingly committed to clarity. He has cultivated a clear prospect of the wheel of life and death. He sees all of us on the edges of that wheel, some of us struggling toward the center, everyone holding on for dear life. He is clear about what it means to be a person. More important, he is clear about what it means to be the person that happens to be himself. This is an awareness you can't fake. In Notes, it's unmistakeable. From the backbeat, reggae-esque minor blues of opening track "Crimson Flame", to the underwater jingle-jangle of "Mr. Tambourine Man", Nowik sings his vision to us in a voice of raw, unflinching truth.Why "sonic"? Well, those with ears to hear will know what I mean when I say that there are sounds, and then there are sounds. Pop that plastic disc into the sliding tray, bring it to life with a thread of crimson light. You'll see. It ain't the up-to-minute producer's palette of this fashion season's airwave hues. Ain't no name, no label to put on it -- don't even bother. It's just sounds. Glorious sounds. Pure and simple. Layered and dizzyingly complex. Laboriously crafted, ecstatically spun, wisely and intuitively captured.

When Mr. Lee, an audio engineer I work with, first listened to this album, he shut his eyes and was quiet for a time. He asked if he could borrow it for a few days. A few days later, I went back. I asked him what he thought. He sipped his coffee a time or two before answering.

"It's going to take me a little while longer," he said.

"What do you mean? You like it or not?"

He just smiled. Smiled with that low-lidded look he gets when he feels that something doesn't need to be said. Audio engineers are curious animals. Really good ones are something like mystics, zen masters. They hear sounds you and I don't, are intimately familiar with worlds we haven't seen.

But I knew what he meant. His ears and his brain were still exploring the reaches of this album. It's a pretty big place. So he just smiled with that low-lidded expression.

"A little while longer," he said.

A little while turned into a couple of weeks. He finally brought it up while we were having tea and talking about some of the great and historically innovative studio recordings -- tricks from Abbey Road, Exile on Main Street -- that kind of thing.

"William Nowik's record," he said, "deserves mention in this discussion."

So, why "sonic"? I think that about says it all.

Why "wonder"? Well, how many colors? How many places, in or out? How many shapes, sizes, textures? How many dimensions do you care to explore? No-mind is water. Swim in the coals, laugh like a god. Are you stark raving mad? Through this faintly rustling light, these tinpan shadows, can you make out the walls of your prison cell? Outside that little window, across endless kalpa, can you taste the howling of the wolves? Where does redshift meet blueshift? Do you know a wrathful diety when you seen one riding down? Just how many times does a man gotta die? That smile on your cheek, blazing out from the moon at the very center -- are you ready to get tattooed? Dance in the spaces between the vibrations? Chill out with a drink and a smoke?

A raft in the ocean ... a score for news of the weather ...

Because there are sounds, and then there are sounds."