How can a musician still communicate when they have nothing else to say? It’s a quandary that Portuguese-Canadian musician Nico Paulo faced as she found herself in a sort of creative limbo. “I was feeling like I had run out of things to say, but I still want to sing to people,” she says of the feeling. “Can I still keep people company with words and sound and not have to tell a full story?’ It’s this questioning that helped birth Paulo’s new EP, Interval_o, a cosy and brief offering inspired by mantras and keeping the whole set up as simplistic as possible.
Stripping away the additional instrumentation that adorned and augmented her 2023 self-titled debut, Interval_o shows Paulo’s almost natural knack for soothing melody. Her tunes are like songs you hum to yourself as you potter about the house, or the warming coo of a mother cradling a newborn child. And that’s apt too, as even though the EP’s material was written beforehand, the cover art shows Paulo’s news that she is a new mother. Like Essie Jain’s maternal Until The Light Of Morning, Interval_o has an undeniably parental quality about. Opening track “memory 1: invitation” layers wordless vocals over each other to create an embryonic glow while “memory 2: grow something” has the rocking bob of a lullaby sung softly. There’s a warming, reassuring luminescence here that feels like it’s recorded right from inside a family home.
Forward Music Group labelmate Joshua Van Tassel producing, engineering, and mixing the record no doubt helps. He carries forward a keen intuition from Nico Paulo for letting songs breathe, to let the few elements present speak for themselves. The acoustic guitar on “memory 5: two ends” chimes with a summery air as Van Tassel’s electronic and ondea perfume the background, like a woody incense burning. Elsewhere on “memory 4: move like a flame” there’s a handsome but small cast: a bouncy bass and some light percussion bring a Latin rhythm fitting to the song’s title while Paulo’s vocals sway alongside, like she’s entranced by the flickering light. On aforementioned “memory 1: invitation” Van Tesser teases out an intimate choir-like feel to Paulo’s wordless layered vocals, evoking Bon Iver and Sigur Rós with the quivering pitch shifting of her voice.
While Nico Paulo could slow burn its way into your heart and get stuck in your head after but a few listens, Interval_o feels so brief that it doesn’t afford itself much time to sink in; all of its 14 minutes feel fleeting, from the gossamer intermission “memory 3: in company” to the almost four minute “memory 2: grow something”, which floats on by like a cloud against an azure sky. The EP’s title is correct, in that it is an interval drifting listeners from one point to the next. For Paulo it is a gentle and lightly playful murmur that serves as a fitting prelude to the birth of her child. The few repeated lyrics Paulo uses here almost don’t matter: they are simple and minimal messages to adorn the music and accentuate the mood. There are no full stories here, just feelings and ambience. “14min to keep you company,” as Paulo labels it. She’s a fine companion to spend time with. Even with little to say, she says plenty with her voice.
