Video: Naytronix, ‘Back In Time’

Daiana Feuer on December 7th, 2015

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Electronic soul musician and tUnE-yArDs bassist Nate Brenner released “Mister Divine” in October via City Slang, his second record as Naytronix. Where his 2012 album, “Dirty Glow” (Plug Research), focused on his interpretation of a funky dance party, this one was inspired and conceived on tour, the result of four years spent circling the world on buses and planes, crashing on a rattling bunk after a show in one town to wake up in another foreign place, and the surreal reality a musician slips into during life on tour. We’re not talking about a week or two, but months and months of life on the road. Citing influences like William Onyeabor, Bootsy Collins, and Arthur Russell, Brenner concentrated his songwriting on the relationship between bass, drums, and voice, bringing in friends to fill in texture on songs drawing on dub, jazz, minimalist new wave, hip hop, and electronics.

Hunkering down in Oakland studio “New, Improved Recording” with collaborator/guitarist Mark Allen-Piccolo and percussionist Robert Lopez, they whittled down hours of music experiments into nine songs, then brought in Matt Nelson and Noah Bernstein (tUnE-yArDs saxophones) and synth player Michael Coleman of Beep! to add sounds and embellishments. The single “Back In Time” traces clear lines between all those music inspirations mentioned, and the video plays on Brenner’s sentimental lyrics, offering a look at the good life spent on sunny desert drives in a convertible and flipping pancakes in your underwear. There’s a mystery, too. Without giving too much away, is it just a break-in or is there some cosmic connection between the ladies and their pins?

||| Watch: “Back In Time”