Released: 5th February 2021
Delving into the bittersweet feeling of moving on from a fun period of your life, 22-year-old Norwegian singer Benjamin Schandy AKA Jimi Somewhere’s debut provides the perfect soundtrack for driving into the sunset with the top down.
The genre Jimi resides in here is hard to define, sitting somewhere between art-pop and dance/electronic, and even within each song, the mood can shift very quickly. This can initially be quite confusing, but the latter half of the album is more consistent, and when the dust settles, this LP provides a full insight into the experience of moving on from something you once loved; it’s almost like a coming of age movie in music form.
Even the 3 singles taken from this album are extremely dynamic, and the songs never seem to stay still for too long, keeping listeners constantly flowing through the well fleshed out sonic landscape, which itself is filled by drum beats, heavily edited vocals, and synth effects, among various other instruments that pop up. ‘Bottle Rocket’ is a great example of a standout track that provides a chorus you can bop too, but also keeps things interesting with its production that combines electronic beats and twisted vocal tones with an acoustic piano.
The whole approach to song structure, production, instrumentation, and pretty much everything else here is very experimental, making full use of the runtime. With the audience Jimi has from his previous EPs and singles, along with his collaborations with names such as boy pablo, it will be interesting to see what the fan base makes of this album as it is rather subdued compared to similar releases. What ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’ occasionally lacks in punch factor, though, it certainly makes up for in depth and scope.
