New Jackson - From Night to Night

Pitchfork 72

Despite the handle of New Jackson, Dublin singer-songwriter David Kitt has been on the scene nearly twenty years. Kitt’s CV includes albums on Rough Trade and Blanco Y Negro, as well as a stint in Tindersticks’ touring band and on 2010 album Falling Down a Mountain. But Kitt also became enchanted with making his own infectious house tracks and released a vocoder-laced EP at the end of 2011. Eight singles have followed on esteemed labels like Permanent Vacation and Hivern Discs.

From Night to Night marks Kitt’s first full-length on the All City Records, a curious Irish imprint that has released albums from breaks-obsessed locals, Parisian boogie producer Onra, as well as L.A. beatmakers like Knxwledge, Daedelus, and Ras_G. That sort of eclecticism plays out on From Night to Night, as New Jackson ranges from moody nighttime flickers to jazz-rooted deep house over its eleven tracks. Opener “Ghost Stomp” has its beat move from muffled to clarified, with bits of worming acid lines and echoing piano blipping into view, but never overtaking the track.

While he has the evident acumen for putting a beat together, where Kitt stands apart is with his own voice and years writing songs. He puts his vocals forward on the title track, a rubbery number with crisp hi-hats. Kitt’s delivery brings to mind Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, in that it’s aware of and embracing its schlubby, everyman qualities, rather than the traditional, transportive vocalists of dance music’s heritage. He delivers lines like “raging at the details” in a deadpan, singing the refrain with a cautious nudge to a higher register. But Kitt’s voice has a tendency to dampen the effectiveness of his productions, drooping across the otherwise charming bits of sax and woodwind on “Put the Love in It” and unnecessarily interrupting the buzz of instrumental “Blaze All Day.”

Using minutely slivered samples reminiscent of Todd Edwards’ work on Daft Punk’s “Face to Face,” “SP2” stands out as one of the album’s most energetic tracks. Confetti’d bits of strummed acoustic guitar, electro drips and hiccupping voices flit about before Kitt’s kick makes them all cohere. While again using little snippets of sound, Kitt takes a different tack for “On Solid Air,” preferring gurgling ambience and the kind of echoplexed effects on bowed cello that hints at experimental folkie John Martyn’s own Solid Air. Bits of Four Tet-like chimes provide the pulse instead of a programmed beat, giving the track’s glitches and sawed strings a decidedly dreamy air.

From Night to Night’s dynamism picks up as the album goes deeper, leading to the standout “Anya’s Piano.” Beginning with a ruminative loop of stand-up bass that seems to stretch and expand with each successive pass, Kitt puts a skipping snare and watery synth behind it. It may namecheck that echoing bit of piano, but it’s when a horn line winds its way around the track that the track bursts into full bloom. And when Kitt layers more of the horn, it soon looses itself from gravity and elegantly floats through the track, all the elements of the song conveying the sense of suspension in its last minute.

The album’s longest tracks come near the end. The busy, burbling “After Midnight in a Perfect World” may hearken back to DJ Shadow’s track from Endtroducing..., but this nearly 11-minute epic races at a near-techno pace. It sounds like Kitt borrowed Pantha du Prince’s windchimes, but rather than aim for that German’s sterile sense of perfection, he adds vocodered growls, harpsichord and outbursts of snare. Kitt wisely goes with his 2013 single, “Of a Thousand Leaves.” A sidelong slice that brings to mind Caribou’s more wistful productions, it soon toughens with a house beat, with Kitt drizzling more vocoder and strings that impart a bit of drama as the track goes on. Though for a new album, there’s something not wholly satisfying in New Jackson closing it out by resorting to something old.