NAGISA NI TE - Dream Sounds

Nagisa Ni Te are Shinji Shibayama and Masanori Takeda, a Japanese psych-folk duo (their name means "On the Beach" in English, guess who it's a tribute to), active for ten years with five albums behind them.

Their sixth record, "Dream Sounds", actually consists of reworked (or rather "aged") versions of tracks taken from their first two works, which, unlike the later ones, had only been distributed in their home country.

The undisputed star of at least three of the album's mere four tracks is Shibayama's guitar, which weaves sweet melodic patterns, shapes and trims the songs, and occasionally ventures into more electric territory.

"The True World" is a long, nearly ten-minute, quiet declamation with two voices (first him, then her, then together), the offspring of a Neil Young on morphine, trying to marry American tradition (in sound) with Japanese tradition (in melody): the result is a pleasant track, but one that never quite grips you.

Much better, far better, is the breezy, easygoing little pop of "Anxiety", with mid-tempo guitars chiming away in the background and a flash of electric guitar cutting through the track.

The mood suddenly shifts with the opening chords of "Me, on the Beach", which recall the more anguished De André, but it's a false alarm. A harmonica reminiscent of Dylan wipes away the dramatic air, and some shinier-than-usual guitar strumming accompanies the sweet litany sung by Takeda, with Shibayama on backing vocals. The track is delicate and delightful, with a surprising electric flourish at the end, though perhaps stretched out just a touch too long.

And it's precisely that tendency to meander, along with a sound that's really lacking in bite and too out of step with the times, that are the album's flaws: the closing twenty minutes of "The True Sun" only confirm them. It opens with a repeated, relaxed guitar melody, swept by gusts of wind and enriched with touches of organ. The vocal part that follows, handled by the male half of the duo, accompanies but doesn't leave a mark.

Which is exactly what happens at the heart of the track, when a handful of acoustic chords in Red House Painters style, over which a slightly battered electric guitar is grafted, manages to carve out some meaningful grooves. For the finale, the voice returns before letting a guitar charged with epic tension close everything out.

That's it, then: in truth, despite the small number of tracks, the record turns out to be of a fitting length and well put together (translation: it ends before it wears out its welcome, which isn't really that much of a compliment).

The listen flows by smoothly and lightly: as we've said, there are some good moments, some less so, there are flaws, and there's a good melodic sense.

The impression is that, properly polished up and backed by some personality, these songs could have given rise to something truly interesting. That's why it's hard to decipher the point of an operation like this: perhaps the wish to pay homage to a certain tradition (or the wish to cash in a bit) held the band back.

Our verdict is this: if the goal was to enchant, Nagisa Ni Te fail; if it was to convey a bit of good cheer, they succeed.

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30/04/2026