5/26/2020

nobuka — You Looked Like an Angel, She Said


Dutch musician Michel van Collenburg is the creator of the project nobuka, where he composes experimental and lo-fi electronics that features field recordings and tape recorders. The EP You Looked Like An Angel, She Said is dedicated to the author's mother, who tragically passed away in March of 2020 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease.

The mood of the album balances between sadness and devastation, which is understandable, if you consider its context.

This release widely employs live instruments: a sound of a piano and its strings being meddled with, and also, a trumpet playing in a liberal free-jazz fashion that creates a tangle of sounds that excellently reflects the idea of this work. The EP also features rather habitual for the artist field recordings of various physical objects. In terms of genres, this release is best described as avant-garde with a little additional element of neo-classic and ambient music.

It is important to note that in the sound, the artist attempted to not only express his personal emotions evoked by the tragic event, but also the disturbance of the thought process and brain functions, that is caused by Alzheimer's disease in its victims. He succeeded in that through the use of indefinite sounds of the trumpet, already mentioned above.

You Looked Like An Angel, She Said is a whole-souled release made with an honest heart, that is not only devoted to the one person, important for the artist, but is also a personal monologue between Michel and his audience.

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nobuka

Author: Ilya Kudrin