Ahead of the release of his new album ‘World Within’, New Zealand dream pop artist Nik Brinkman has followed up his first single in a few years, ‘Long Way To Go’, with a second positively shimmering release, ‘Where Are You Now’.
With languid laid back vocals channeling Jim Reid from The Jesus and Mary Chain, the instrumentation is bedded firmly in a delicious 12-string jingle jangle heaven that chimes like ringing bells in the ether.
The song reflects on the struggle of being caught in memories of the past, unable to move on. Brinkman says:
I wanted to capture that feeling of emotional yearning and isolation—like being stuck on a fast-spinning merry-go-round and feeling like the only escape is to close your eyes.
The track comes with a psychedelic self-directed video with Brinkman performing the track in the saturated light of domestic bliss with a fine array of guitars like an intimate karaoke perfomance:
‘Where Are You Now?’ is out today through Declared Goods/Fine Art Records and available to stream here.
Brinkman last blew us away here at Backseat Mafia back in 2021 with his debut album ‘Secret Stairs’ (see my review here) and in the intervening time has been utilising his skills with other artists as well as moving to a new town and reinvigorating his music writing and recording process. Brinkman says of the new material:
I wanted to escape the world of modern music tools for this album and make a record with no MIDI and also an album I could easily translate to a live setting. I like the immediacy of physical instruments and not having to draw sounds in with a mouse which I always find myself doing these days.
