There are rare moments, as a music fan, when an artist comes along with such a complete vision, a sound so unlike anything you’ve heard before, that shifts how you think about what music can sound like. There are many albums that make year-end lists that are respectable works in their field, but hearing something wholly unique is a defining moment for any music fan. An album that changes you in such a way that you cannot return is a blessing, a memory worth revesting time and time again like a new comfort food.
Exit Simulation by Niecy Blues is one of those albums.
Niecy Blues grew up in Oklahoma in a religious household that wouldn’t allow them to listen to secular music. Through that upbringing, they drew inspiration from gospel and praise music, particularly the swells, delay, and vocal harmonies that became their first taste of ambient music. Taking further influence from r&b, downtempo, and lo-fi, they merged these influences into an album of deep textures and ethereal beauty. Exit Simulation was recorded in their Charleston, South Carolina home, layering vocal loops and improvisations with synths, bass, guitar, and additional instrumentation and vocals on several tracks from guest artists. On a recent podcast episode of Songs of Our Lives they said about the writing process, ‘I was just making whatever felt good,’ letting the spirit of each song breathe in and out of their recordings.
Opening tracks “1111” and “The Nite B4” set the introspective, dreamy mood of Exit Simulation, full of plodding deep bass and synths that wax and wane like the tide while Niecy‘s buttery, soulful voice washes over you like a warm sea mist. “U Care” follows with the first true groove of the album, a lo-fi drum beat and relaxing bass before elements of musique concrete work their way in with chirping birds, gentle plucked guitar until a raucous gospel sample barges into the closing.
This brief sample serves as a transition to “Violently Rooted” where a soft funk soul bass carries looping vocal lamentations over loping snare samples reminiscent of trip-hop or UK garage. There is a haunting quality to the arrangement, similar to the feeling of Nina Simone‘s “Strange Fruit” complimented by the connection of roots, violence, and survival in the lyrics. The track ends with another sample, a poignant clip about control through fear. To be clear, Exit Simulation doesn’t bother with the tried-and-true r&b themes of romance. These songs are about looking outward, looking inward, and finding yourself through the embattled emotions of existing in your own space against all odds.
The title of the album came from a sci-fi book and carries the albums theme. ‘Morning skies won’t wait for you/only a few have arrived‘, Niecy sings on the title track. How do you exit the parts of yourself that have shaped you? On “Exit Simulation” and “Exits” the center pieces of the album, the answer lies in the hypnotic vocal layers that lull into themselves like Juliana Barwick delivering an elegy to Aaliyah.
The second half of the album kicks off with “Soma”, the most collaborative track on the record, which captures the feeling of a hallucinatory jazz session with live drums, flute, and KeiyaA on saxophone. Several short ambient tracks drift through before “The Architect” lays down a delay-heavy drill beat as a foundation for ever higher reaching vocal bliss with contribution from T. Morris Wilson in what may be the closest Exit Simulation gives us to a danceable track. “Analysis Paralysis” is another standout arrangement in its pop song structure and absolutely gorgeous outro. “Cascade” closes us out over folksy strummed acoustic guitars and blend of chopped and screwed vocals lurking underneath Niecy‘s stellar vocal performance.
For a young, emerging artist, there is nothing but oceans of this sound to explore; no expectations to live up to, only the full spectrum of your own creativity to let flourish. Niecy Blues sets a high bar for themselves and everyone else in the game to live up to. Exit Simulation is easily one of the best albums of 2023, a spiritual experience brimming with gravitas and heart. This is nothing short of a stunning debut, and we will be blessed indeed to see what Niecy Blues has in store for us next.
