Seraphina Lotkhamnga on March 6th, 2012

1

Like her moniker suggests, Ramona Gonzalez has never been quite in the dark. Since the release of 2009’s “Good Evening,” her music as Nite Jewel has always delicately sparkled with a maturity as much as it mysteriously teased with a shrouded vulnerability. The string of EPs that followed touched on chillwave, but Nite Jewel’s recent funk- and R&B-inspired material has yielded a heavier (and lovelier) palette of bright disco and slightly gothic bedroom pop. Her new record “One Second of Love” is out today via Secretly Canadian, and she’s come a long way from the shy girl who hid behind her cassette tapes and 8-track machine.

||| Stream: “In the Dark”

Although this is only Nite Jewel’s second full-length, the knowledge and technology she and her bandmate/producer/husband Cole Marsden Greif-Neill have acquired since her debut have yielded what figures to be one of the most sophisticated records of the year. Buzz Bands LA staff writer Seraphina L caught up with Nite Jewel to talk about R&B obsessions like SWV, her innate rebellion and upcoming collaborations.

When I was listening to “One Second of Love,” some of the futuristic grooves and riffs on the title track kind of remind me of Debbie Deb, and I immediately Googled “Lookout Weekend.” I know you’re a big R&B pop fan. Was she a big influence on you at all?

Debbie Deb actually wasn’t for me, personally, although friends have made those comparisons for a long time. Like when I first playing in L.A., Ben White – this guy who used to run Part-Time Punks – booked a show for me and wrote a description that said  something like, “She sounds something like Debbie Deb on cough syrup” or whatever. I didn’t even really listen to that much freestyle, but I did listen to much more obscure groups who did freestyle in New York. So I totally am in to the genre, very much so. It’s just that I didn’t listen to her that much, specifically, but I am very honored for the comparison.

We now take this timeout to watch director Delaney Bishopr’s video for the single:

Well, she was inching toward the mainstream pop side. So who were some of your favorite obscure R&B pop artists?

Well in the freestyle vein, I was listening to these New York post-punk comps my friend had. Some stuff on there was almost disco post-punk, like a blend of different things. But for the R&B, I was always really into stuff that was really mainstream which I heard in the ”˜90s as a kid. I was a huge Aaliyah fan. I was a huge TLC and SWV fan. Even groups like Xscape, Total and Jade – I was just obsessed with all of them. It was embarrassing at one point. I would open up my CD book and just have only all R&B girl groups. I couldn’t even show it to a guy I was in to.

I was also obsessed with all those groups, but oddly enough, I have no shame. Are you still embarrassed?

Well the thing is, I grew up in a place – or perhaps it was the time – where it was you were either a rapper or a rocker. Because I didn’t have an identity through music, I just listened to what I liked. For the first term of junior high, I ended up hanging out with the freaks, like different weird psychos, all the druggies, Sex Pistol fans, the cutters and that kind of shit. I was hanging out with them but there was always the threat of getting beaten up. So, at certain point, you had to decide if you were a rapper or a rocker so you didn’t get your ass kicked.

It’s like the show “Freaks and Geeks.”

It is! But time may have changed things now. Who knows.

Speaking of time and change, your sound has obviously evolved from “Good Evening.” Everything sounds so much smoother and crisper. You’re not recording with cassettes tapes and 8-tracks now, are you?

Yeah, I haven’t really used 8-tracks since 2010. I sort of gave up the idea of recording on it. I’ll bounce to a cassette every once in a while because certain things sound nice on there, but I wouldn’t necessarily record on it anymore because I have the capability to do otherwise. I mean, I didn’t have a computer of my own back then.

A lot of people who have been listening to your music for a long time associate you with the lo-fi bedroom pop sound, but the new record sounds so polished without losing the deep grooves. What has the reaction been among your friends with “One Second of Love?”

People were definitely surprised. Like Ariel [Pink] came over to my house to listen to the record and was really astonished. He’s extremely intelligent but still took the time to take it all in and process it. In the end he said he was proud of what I had done. I think that you have to adjust to the idea of me being this confident singer as opposed to this scared little chipmunk. You have to accept me for being a different person. For my friends, it’s interesting. They’re accepting me as this new person and it’s really emotional for them. It’s like they’re a proud parent. At least Ariel is.

You said you used to be this scared little girl (or chipmunk). Were you that scared when you first started putting music out?

Of course. I was completely unprepared for what had happened. I did not plan to do music professionally. I was just recording stuff; it was a big surprise. I was in school and I was doing this on the side, so yeah, I was sort of really freaked out by the whole thing. I love performing and playing for people. I always have, but it was weird for that album [“Good Evening”] to be the thing I performed, because it was so unbelievably personal.

Now years down later, with a slicker sound on the new record, do you still feel that personal about your songs?

That’s the other thing. These songs are just as personal as well, but “Good Evening” was more palatable in a way, because you couldn’t tell what I was saying. You could have just thought it was gibberish, or whatever. But now it has more of an impact because you can hear me, understand what I’m saying, and it’s still all coming from this deep place again. I mean, I think everyone who listens to it will be able to tell it’s pretty personal.

I definitely remember muffled singing in “Weak for Me” …

Yeah, in some ways, “Good Evening” was a very heart-on-your-sleeve record. There were certain songs where the lyrics were so unbelievably personal, I didn’t feel comfortable with making them intelligible. And that was just the case with some songs. It’s just a form of expression. I’m here expressing myself and it’s not really for you; it’s for me so I’m just going to shroud these lyrics. So on that record, I made it so I wasn’t going to be so wounded if someone disliked something. I was protecting myself a little bit. The lyrics were personal but artful in a way so that I wasn’t “I’m crying, I’m a sad little girl, I’m in love with this guy ”¦” and so on. I wanted to find a way to do it a bit more tongue-and-cheek.

On the new record, you seem to be taking your time with the vocal rhythms no matter the bpm. The way you elongate your vowels makes it seem like you’ve been musically trained.

Well, I was wavering in between music and philosophy during school, but I had been singing since I was little kid. I’ve taken a variety of vocal classes, but I’m not very good with authority when it comes to something like art. So if people told me what to do, sometimes I’d do the opposite. I’m in a classical music class and I’ll sing like a pop singer ”¦ so I’m not a perfectly trained person. I’m sort of a weirdly trained person. I come in to my own way to work with my own vocal styles but I’ve definitely taken lessons for a long time.

So you always rebelled against the lessons you were given?

OK, so the first vocal teacher I ever had was a woman who worked with Bobby McFerrin. She was very versed in this combination of classical jazz and world music, and expressing yourself was the most important thing about music no matter the canon – in her perspective. So I was always taught to do whatever it takes to make the emotion really palpable. So on “Good Evening,” I didn’t redo takes that I felt were emotionally key even if they were out of tune. Now I can have more control because I have been singing more consistently ”¦ because of Nite Jewel.

Your sound has always been retro, in an unconventional way. Do you ever pay attention to the new trends and what the kids are doing today? If so, what do you initially think about them?

I try to stay abreast with things, but the problem is that I’m so ingrained in older records that it’s hard for me sometimes. There’s such a multitude of information, I end up getting most of my new music from my friends who are themselves musicians. But because we tend to share a lot of tastes, a lot of their music tends to be retro as well. For really progressive new stuff, I definitely try to pay attention, which is usually upcoming experimental instrumental music. I’ve always been a fan of Tim Hecker. I think he’s a genius. On the other side of things, I’ll listen to pop music on the radio and get a sense of what they’re doing. All the stuff in between is valuable, but I don’t really care as much about indie acts. There’s so much music and there’s so little time, I’d rather be listening to the people who are selling millions of records – unless it’s a really particular style I would always be listening to anyway.

Do you consider your friends more of an influence than those artists on the radio?

Yeah. I have a treasure trove of old records because I look for them, and because I have friends who are record collectors. But then the newer stuff is from friends who send me their new music, whether it’s Ariel’s new stuff, Julia Holter’s new stuff, Jason Grier’s new stuff, or whoever. Even when I first started recording myself, these are the people I’ve been around and these are the people who inspired me. So I’m always looking to them and seeing how it’s going.

How often do collaborations happen for you and these friends?

I’ve collaborated with almost every friend I’ve had in LA. If you’re hanging out with someone, you’re usually collaborating on something. That’s the cool thing about L.A. People don’t just hang out for no reason. Everybody kind of has an agenda, but in a good way. Most recently, I collaborated with Jimmy Tamborello for a song on his new Dntel record.

Will we ever be hearing more from Nite Funk (Nite Jewel + Dam-Funk)?

I certainly hope so. I’ve been writing a bunch of songs over the past year that I saw as songs Dam and I could do. I think he’s been doing the same whether he imagined them for us first or after he made them, he saw them for us. We’ve been sending stuff back and forth, but we’ve just both been super busy at the moment. We really want to make it but it’s not a collaboration that needs to be rushed. We live in the same city so we’re taking our time.

Being in such a community where everyone is involved with each other, you are in the midst of all this creativity. But you’ve also made a point to know the difference between creativity and proficiency. Do you feel like “One Second of Love” offers a musical proficiency you’re proud of?

I guess I didn’t really think of proficiency in terms of myself, necessarily, because I personally reached out to a lot of musicians who are more proficient than me to do the things I would have normally done on “Good Evening,” like playing guitar or drums. But in that sense, by doing that, I’ve made a statement through this record about proficiency by reaching out to people who are better at playing than me or better at producing than me. It wasn’t intentional to say “Hey, look at what I can do.” It was more so to make a record that sounded like records by proficient musicians in the past I continue to listen to and don’t get sick of today because it’s not mediocre music.

Going back in time again, do you go ever go back and listen to that Nimbus Obi record that famously gave you your moniker?

That record isn’t that good, but that song is pretty cool. It makes complete sense, actually. When you listen to it, you would understand exactly what is happening with Nite Jewel. It’s synth-prog. It’s extremely cheesy but misses the mark about what’s in vogue. It’s really catchy but in this awkward and creepy way, and I feel like that’s what I kind of do.

Awkward and creepy?

Yeah. It’s like you’re providing this song palette and you like it but you feel weird listening to it. That’s what Nimbus Obi does and it’s really off-kilter, but also well-produced. It’s not super lo-fi. It’s kind of mid-fi.

||| Live: Nite Jewel celebrates the release of “One Second of Love” tonight at Del Monte Speakeasy, in addition to upcoming SXSW dates.

Photo by Mathew Scott