Brooklyn’s Nassau have a transportive sound that’s far removed from the noise of the city. After pursuing respective projects in Baltimore and Chattanooga, the duo of Justin Wilcox and Jeffrey Silverstein began working together late last year on a debut EP, Hoss, and their collaboration has proved breathtaking, combining careful lyricism with soft, glowing instrumentation.
Follow-up to a striking first single driven by the slide of mellow guitars, “Desert Blues” pulls the EP into a more melancholy headspace. With a slow-dance sway and the steadying pulse of a kick drum and tambourine, it paints a wrenching picture of a walk after hours, the sound of a night breeze running alongside a soothing ambient wail. When the words “Just drive me further away from you” cut through the imagery, it’s piercing, the absence thoroughly felt. Nassau have captured a calm and low feeling here, like the rest that sometimes accompanies resignation, and it’s easy to sink deep into that feeling over the course of the song’s four minutes.
You can hear “Desert Blues” below. Nassau’s Hoss EP is due out June 23 on Fire Talk Records, and they’ll be celebrating its release with a show that night at Baby’s All Right alongside Mutual Benefit and Florist.
