Features
Track By Track: Nikko
By Doug Wallen
Fire alarms, repetition and Spanish scales – singer and multi-instrumentalist RYAN POTTER gazes into Nikko’s second album ‘Gold & Red’.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]
‘The Child’
Gold & Red was recorded over four days in Brisbane’s Old Museum, mostly live, trying to make the most of the massive acoustics in the orchestral hall. We layered vocals, strings and keys over the next month or so. ‘The Child’ was the last to be written for the album. I was trying to imagine playing a song in the Old Museum and this is what came out. It was originally written in a solo acoustic blues style, but for Nikko and this recording we needed something much grander. Parts were reworked, a quick modulation was added for a bridge, instruments were layered up and some healthy improvisation and room for a jam added in. I think it comes across kind of orchestral.
Normally the songs start with a simple idea, but by the time they’re finished they can be quite complex and I have no idea how to describe or explain them. ‘The Child’ is one of those. It was built around the chord progression of the verse. The way the chords move and resolve seemed to hold a lot of power, you could repeat them all day, playing them in different ways. The lyrics ramble on about innate guilt and shirking responsibility, finishing off with a dream sequence. Blair mimics a ticking clock on the drums that ties it all up and somehow they flow together and make sense.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] The Child by Nikko Music
‘About the Spirit'
This started as an honest love song but quickly got pretty twisted. I was looking for a balance of confidence and hesitance, someone leaving no stone unturned and looking for reassurance through repetition. I wanted to cover a lot of ground while singing over the same three chords the whole song. It’s simple but honest, and definitely desperate. It was written and recorded with just me singing, but everyone agreed it could work with female vocals. Jacinta [Walker] from The Keep On Dancin’s, Tiny Migrants and Butcher Birds came in a few days later and did her part in a couple of takes. It completely lifted the song and added a whole other dimension. I’ve always wanted to do a Johnny Cash/June Carter- [or] Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra-style duet and was pretty happy I’d written something similar by accident.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] About the Spirit by Nikko Music
‘Dark Eyes’
We were recording and in the third verse a fire alarm went off. You can hear it just after four minutes. Jackson [Briggs] and I both stopped playing guitar but [bassist] Sam [Whiting] and [drummer] Blair [Westbrook] kept going. We eventually came back in, tidied things up on overdubs and Jackson ended up mimicking the sound of the alarm with volume swells. Listening to your own songs can be hard when you have practised it so many times and know every little detail. A lot of the magic is gone and you can’t hear it objectively. I much prefer hearing my own music when there’s something that was unplanned. Blair plays jazz shows outside of Nikko and tells us that ‘Dark Eyes’ has a New Orleans beat. This, combined with Jackson’s off-kilter strumming, gives it a unique groove.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Dark Eyes by Nikko Music
‘Smoke Alarms’
I started writing this on the same day as ‘About the Spirit’, so it was fitting they ended up on the 7” together. They both started on the same subject, a blinding love, but with the aim to take them in completely different directions. ‘About the Spirit’ is direct and specific, while ‘Smoke Alarms’ was a sort of exercise in mystery and of things incomprehensible. In the end it’s still about love. I was getting interested in all the things that go against logic and listening to songwriters who I had no idea what they were singing about. This one came very easily.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Smoke Alarms by Nikko Music
‘You Are Loved’
This was a kind of exercise in repetition. I wrote down heaps of lyrics really quickly and wasn’t sure what to do with them. By repeating the same line over and over again, it gives it different powers and it takes on different meanings. The chord changes just before the chorus I’m really happy with. I like little key changes that aren’t too obvious; they make the difference in an otherwise fairly straight rock song.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] You Are Loved by Nikko Music
‘The Sun Rises’
People often talk about songwriting that is honest or confessional, and I was wondering how these songwriters get by. There must be personal songs they don’t want the public or their friends and family to know about? This song is about that. I was aiming for a cyclical chord progression throughout the song. It has a feeling of shifting and moving but always comes back to the start. The sun always rises and the truth always comes out.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] The Sun Rises by Nikko Music
‘Never Danced’
I originally recorded this as a sort of dance song with high-energy electronic beats, melodica and strings. In my head it sounded like an amazing club hit, but in reality it sounded awful. I was going for a Jonathan Richman-style thing, trying to get the right balance of sadness and humour, but it came out something else. We later tried it as a Nikko song and it caused a few tears in the practise room but eventually morphed into something likable. We refer to it as our power ballad.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Never Danced by Nikko Music
‘Gold & Red’
This was a riff I had around for a while and we tried in different songs. It’s hard to use a Spanish-style scale and not have the song sound too Spanish. I had just got a sitar and was having a bit of fun playing around, Jackson had a mandolin with him and the Queensland Youth Orchestra had their gong left in the Old Museum, so we used them all. The song was trying to capture a kind of Saturday night vibe. About holding a whole lot of potential – ready to burst – but just going real slow and masterfully. So the song goes for eight minutes and builds up the tension. I originally didn’t want there to be any release in the music, but it’s hard to restrain.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Gold & Red by Nikko Music
‘Losing the Meaning’
This was an attempt to create a mood I don’t know how to describe, but whenever I hear it in music I’m instantly drawn to it. Lee Hazlewood, Jonathan Richman, Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen can all do it really well. A kind of blatant sadness that brings about happiness. There’s something about songs with an obvious sadness that make you happy. The really good ones make you laugh. I don’t think I pulled it off at all, but that’s all the more reason to keep trying. I’m proud of the chord progression here; I believe it’s quite original. I wrote the chords out for the violinist and cellist during recording and they just improvised and nailed the mood perfectly. The song needed a balance of timidness and faked bravado, and that’s exactly what you get when you give performers a complicated chord chart they’ve never seen and have to pretend they know what they’re doing.
[Historical embedded media is withheld pending rights review.] Losing the Meaning by Nikko Music
+