Crew Love’s always intriguing artist Nick Monaco just released his second full length album”Half Naked” and decided to share it with all his fans in a special way, with a video listening session while he takes a bath! Candles, wine, newspaper reading and great music are part of this relaxing and exfoliating experience.
On Half Naked, Nick goes deeper into his songwriting, striving for substance by searching within and writing these songs for himself. He reveals more, confidently embracing vulnerability, and explores how much more of himself he can be.
The album opens with “Conversation Piece” an electric jazzy tune thematically driven by a lover’s suspicion that there might be someone else in their partner’s world. “Physical Therapy” sets the album on fire with Nick’s strong percussive vocal experimentation, a song that activates the imagination, hypnotizing and drawing you deeper into the album’s intimate embrace. On the spacey “Somewhere Along the Line”, Nick floats along with doubt and a feeling of being lost, but still stumbles upon the strength to keep going, with the track exploding to achieve a satisfying dramatic subtlety. The titular track “Half Naked” is a sexual song with the feeling of a bedroom’s private innocence layered with vulnerability, intimacy and confidence. With the song “Thin Air”, Nick makes up the perfect person, but struggles with this fiction, and you can hear it with the raw, beautifully metallic clash of the high hats. The piano driven “Bathwater” is a discordantly intimate track about escaping problems, but coming to terms with the fact that you can help yourself if you listen to yourself, a feat easier said than done.
Featuring a remarkable list of collaborators, Nick brings these talents together to deliver his strongest body of work to date, one that oozes intimacy with every note. David Marston’s magic on guitar contributes to an undeniable weight to the sound of the album, and good friend Roland Harper once again lends his sultry vocals to Nick on the imaginative “Rolly Polly”. Rounding out the talented roster of collaborators is Richard Kennedy of Hercules and the Love Affair acclaim on the R’n’B ballad “For Some Reason”.
Nick has collaborated with a young perfumer from Thailand by the name of San to make his own fragrance line, appropriately named Half Naked. Creating a fully immersive sensory experience, the listener can smell along as they listen to each track, with San working with Nick to create a unique scent based on each song.
Nick Monaco is not afraid to fail or make mistakes, and this fearlessness allows him to get the most out of his instrumentation, and he certainly accomplishes something musically unique on Half Naked. It all feels very natural, and you can hear the greater confidence Nick Monaco has attained through touring and his relentless drive to produce in the studio. So, sit back, open your ears, maybe take your clothes off and listen as Nick Monaco starts to almost bare it all.
Purchase “Half-Naked” here: https://crewlove.lnk.to/HalfNaked
