Album Review – In The Marigolds by Jim Nothing (Meritorio Records / Melted Ice Cream) (2022)
Far from being a solo act with an unusual surname or carefully minimalistic stage moniker, Jim Nothing is something of a Kiwi super group consisting of James Sullivan, Anita Clark and Brian Feary, who between them have played in jangle-pop / indie luminaries such as Wurld Series, Salad Boys, The Phoenix Foundation and Motte.
Such a playful contrivance is about as complicated as it gets though, as the album strives to present a double nuanced trip through the best of the islands retro and modern alt. jangle-pop scene.
Initially the best of the album is perhaps the least lucid. Here the frenetic tempos of The Beths, in all their jangle-rock pomp, course through Never Come Down, Yellow House and Borrowed Time and are juxtaposed against a scuffed, scuzzy fuzz-pop, as the slightest sense of a psych battles to become relevant.
As the tempo drops the jangle gradually increases. Nowhere Land and Fall Back Down are the most exuberant as the Dunedin Sound is visited in the form of an early The Chills aesthetic, whereas an invigorating sense of ‘The Bats dulcet’ and indefinable cool bundles through tracks such as Seahorse Kingdom and the superlative stand out of Back Again.
Whilst far too laconic to enter into an extravagant fight for our attention, this debut album is one of those ‘growers’ that you will find yourself turning to without really realizing why and will undoubtedly find its way onto the most relevant of the best of lists at the end of the year.
The perfect accompaniment to those perfect moments of just being.
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