Nagisa Ni Te

Nagisa Ni Te have released three wonderful albums in the U.S. Their fifth, Dream Sounds, is a four-song 40-minute EP made up of re-recorded versions of songs from their first two Japanese-only releases. "True World," "Anxiety" and "True Sun" are from 1998's True World and "Me, On the Beach is from 1995's On the Love Beach. The new versions are not worlds away from the originals but they do clean up any stray hints of lo-fi artiness and do away with any remaining vestiges of their delicate psych-folk sound (a puzzling but somehow admirable move in a year in which indie rock is on the brink of being flooded by psych-folk) and actually sound more like a late '60s or early '70s Laurel Canyon group than one who had followed their career might think possible. They now have the tender frailty of David Crosby, the introspective strum of early Joni Mitchell and the sprawling guitar epic tendencies of Neil Young. As on so many of Young albums, Shinji Shibayama's guitar is the star on most of Dream Sounds. He is a graduate of the less-is-more-school of soloing but can carry long songs on his back. Witness the truly epic 20-minute long"The True Sun." Building from a quiet folk song to a full-on guitar freak-out then subsiding to a sweet lullaby and starting all over again, the song shows the band's mastery of dynamics and atmosphere, as well as Shibayama's guitar heroics. Comparable to anything Galaxie 500 ever did, it's a dream pop classic and makes the record worth owning all on its own, even if you have the original recordings already. The other three songs are consistently wonderful as well; "Me, On the Beach" is a beguilingly gentle and pretty ballad that features Masanori Takeda's best ever vocal, "Anxiety" is as close to a rock song as the group has ever come; Masanori Takeda's keening voice floating over some staggering chord changes and more blistering lead guitar work from Shibayama and "The True Sun" is another long piece that drifts and flows like classic Young but with a Japanese soul. Dream Sounds is a definite sideways step for Nagisa Ni Te, but it is an exceedingly listenable one. ~ Tim Sendra, All Music Guide