Sendai based ambient artist Nerve (Manabu Ito), as NRV, released his latest EP Notari in July 2021 on Foil Imprints and distilled the essence of the tranquil moments captured in deep places in our memories. The hazy drones and distant, abstracted to a blur of melodies and eroded feedback convey a sense of emotional place where the urgency of everyday life is blocked by a protective cloud cover that also conveys your spirit along a path that soothes the psyche and encourages an opening up to simple stimuli that can be missed in a sea of demanding content. “Rice field and river, 1974” and “i want a white petal in my teacup” as titles have a Zen-like poetic quality to suggest times when you are struck by simple things, simple desires that nourish a sense of inner peace rather than call for a dramatic response. In a time and in a culture that all but requires we push ourselves to the maximum for the requirements of an economic system that is destroying the planet and crushing everyone under, even those who benefit the most, music like this may not hit you over the head with its importance, it is not something over which to get “stoked,” but it may be the sort of thing we need more of to get through to a saner future human civilizational baseline as embodied by these gorgeous five tracks. Watch the evocative EP video preview below and listen to the EP on Bandcamp and consider purchasing the cassette version and listen analog in an appropriate setting like looking out the window during a snowstorm.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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