I’m often sent music from young artists who are extremely talented for their age but still require a little growing up to reach their potential. Then there are those who already seem to have it all figured out.
By Graeme Smith
Noah K falls into the latter category. His album New Colors of the Sky chronicles the progression of his sound from the ages of eleven to thirteen and shows he has already mastered the art of songwriting alongside being a prodigious musician. What’s more remarkable is that he only started to learn the guitar as he started penning the album.
New Colors opens with the dreamy, echoing ambience of Space Montana. Experimental snatches of captured voices giving us an instant sense that things will be little different from most, and that’s confirmed by Noah’s use of genre, blending country with psychedelia with unexpected ease.
The psychedelic takes the foreground across many of the album’s tracks, and it’s a warm, nostalgic take on it, something akin to a lot of Pink Floyd’s early work. Yellow Happiness is a case in point, recalling Atom Heart Mother and injecting the record with an early indie rock edge.
Each track paints a picture, feeling separate but cohesive. Lonely Dr. Goose gives us our first taste of Noah’s vocals during a beautifully absurdist, brassy moment. Noah states it was inspired by The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.
As the album progresses, so does his maturity as a performer (the tracks are roughly in chronological order in terms of when they were created), and we finally arrive at The Ride Back Home, a reflective and atmospheric closer with a sense of movement and a touch of the wistful.
New Colors of the Sky is an intoxicating mix of youthful energy and classic songwriting. As such, it feels timeless. Usually when grappling with a review of a young artist, I’d emphasise their limited years but with this album, Noah K’s age feels irrelevant, other than to say that, as he’s just about to turn fourteen, there’s plenty of time for us to hear more from him.
If you want to keep up to date with all he’s doing, you can by following him on Instagram and Facebook.
New Colors of the Sky was written and performed in London with production, mixing and mastering coming from Romania-based multi-instrumentalist Matei Tibacu-Blendea at Foreign Humor Productions. It’s out now, and you can listen to it below.
