Noro
New York City, New York, United States
Music
Press
We’ve been spending a lot of time with this pair of pensively crafted compositions by New York singer-songwriter, Noro. After two years of incubation, and with a yet to be named debut full-length album in the pipeline for 2013, Samuel Hoeksema aka Noro has teamed up with Mouser to release this new digital 7? titled Nightingale. The release drops tomorrow (12/11) as a free download and offers two tracks: “For Joy”, an upbeat pop ode featuring an array of synth textures culminating in an ethos of etherial chaos, and the more straightforward “Amor”, with it’s lyrical vulnerability and hymn-like quality. B3SCI’s got the premiere, so take a listen below and make note for more to come from Noro in the days ahead.
Rating: 8.4 - B3SCI
Born in Calgary and now relocated to New York, Samuel Hoeksema is the man behind Noro. We were eagerly waiting for the release of his two-track debut single Nightingale since it was announced last week. Nightingale saw the light of day yesterday via Mouser, and Noro is offering it as a free download here.
As we previously mentioned, Nightingale includes contributions from Austin Tufts (BRAIDS), Aaron Meyer (Honeybear) and producer Morgan Greenwood (Azeda Booth).
The single features the tracks ‘For Joy’ and ‘Armor’, a beautiful and heartfelt song. Listen to it below and don’t let your ears miss Nightingale. - Cast the Dice
This Tuesday December 11th will see the free digital release of the two-track single Nightingale from Noro, the brainchild project of New York-via-Calgary musician Samuel Hoeksema.
Nightingale features the warm and radiant tracks ‘Armor’ and ‘For Joy’ and it marks Noro’s debut release.
In incubation for two years, according the press release, Nightingale also features contributions from Austin Tufts (BRAIDS), Aaron Meyer (Honeybear) and producer and member of Azeda Booth, Morgan Greenwood.
Noro is currently recording and producing his debut full-length album, due out next year. His first offerings leave us eagerly anticipating it, and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for more on this.
The release blurb describes ‘Armor’ and ‘For Joy’ as “a product of surrender; of allowing oneself to lie prone and let one’s deepest self speak without competition”. These songs are the perfect accompaniment to gorgeous winter days like today and I can’t wait for them to drop next week. - Cast the Dice
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
Noro is not a product of irrepressible inspiration, of an indomitable and irresistible force of human creative energy. Noro is surrender. It is about relinquishment.
After contemplating selling all his musical equipment, Samuel Hoeksema tucked himself away in the quiet darkness of his parentss basement and surrendered himself to his music one last time. That night he opened himself to explore his feelings of anxiety and insecurity surrounding his music, and that dialogue with his deeper self manifested into a song titled Bell.
With something in hand that finally felt real, he sent the completed song to a few close friends including a new friend who would later produce his debut release, the Nightingale 7, Morgan Greenwood. He was met with a wave of reinforcement, and with his friendss encouragement towards following this new thread he returned back to his basement room to record seven more songs over the course of the next week. Each had a delicate vulnerability to them fortified by an unabashed truthfulness, and this has become the hallmark of the character embodied in his work.
The local scene quickly embraced him and this soon lead to a string of shows, mention in local music publications, and being invited to perform live on air at Calgarys CJSW 90.9. However, as autumn approached he followed through with earlier laid plans and relocated to New York to study acting. For two years these songs gestated - time and again emerging from hibernation until the urge to revisit them in a substantial way became too much to resist any longer. He left his newly embarked upon career in acting and once again locked himself away, this time between his Inwood, Manhattan apartment and a cabin in Upstate New York while he began work on a yet to be named full length. Again he immersed himself in isolation and disconnection to let the superfluous melt away and allow the meaningful connections to present themselves.
Hoeksema creates a deeply intimate and intricately constructed internal world of cavernous space paired with warm acoustic guitar while lush vocal harmonies and electronic chirps swirl about like a reassuring wind. These songs are a product of surrender; of allowing oneself to lie prone and let ones deepest self speak without competition.
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