CONCERT REVIEW - FEB. 8, 2008: NOMI, 205 CLUB, LOWER EAST SIDE

I suspected that a number of the people in the audience had only happened into the Lower East Side’s 205 Club last Friday night, but they were treated to a chance to see a nascent star stretching her wings.

At first restless, after just a couple of songs the crowd grew more attentive and the din of praise started to circulate the narrow room. The artist was New York City’s own Nomi (www.nomionline.com), who along with her solid bass-guitar-drum trio, demonstrated a rare eclecticism and inimitable personal style in her impressive hour long set.

Anyone who has seen her fashion-model-like promotional shots could not have been disappointed by this talented Brooklyn native’s stage presence. Tall and lithe, and dressed in a sleek blue skirt and jeans, Nomi looked as if she could have come from the runway of one of Fashion Week’s recent shows. However, all suspicions of diva-hood were disarmed by the soulful first lines of her opening original song Scarred: “…you caught my eye with a scar, how it spoke of the things you have been through…”

Adding another dimension to the already versatile repertoire laid out in her premier 2005 album, Lost in Lust, Nomi performed a number of unabashedly straight-forward rap songs. Following Scarred was the mid-tempo rap Thug, a satire of sidewalk sexual harassment; the gritty take on materialism and priorities, Life or C.R.E.A.M, “Cash rules everything around me” (The word is that rapper Ill Bill will be featured on the album version); and concluding the set was fraternally produced, family-themed Brotherhood. In these songs, the same fluid, caramel voice that in her R&B recordings has drawn comparisons to Sade, Mary J. Blige, and in my opinion–if the comparison may be forgiven–Michael Jackson, sounded equally at home rising and falling in an uncontrived rap staccato. Not only is her rap-sound relaxed and unaffected, but her stage delivery of such indecorous lines as “my father was a f@#$er and he left me for a whore, I guess that’s why you caught my eye with a scar” is both convincing and unpretentious - a surprising and compelling contrast to her refined singing and physical elegance.

A well-chosen peak in the set was the deeply personal Diana, about the suicide of a close friend. Like one of my favorite songs of the same theme–Willie Nelson’s Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground - this song grapples with the motivations, doubts, and memories that surround such a tragedy, and it reflects the lyrical skills of a mature and sensitive writer.

Fans of her delicious R&B sound were taken care of by her stunning cover of the Fleetwood Mac classic, Rhiannon, and her original tunes Maybe She Suspects, Lonely Love Affair, and What I’m Worth. All of these songs will be released in her forthcoming sophomore album “Borough Gypsy.”

Much has been made of Nomi’s association with other cutting edge New York artists including Coco Rosie, and most notably, Antony and the Johnsons; however, what distinguishes her from many of her young and talented contemporaries is that she has the resources and potential to syncretize so many seemingly disparate genres. Friday night’s show foreshadowed this intriguing project, and we eagerly await its execution on “Borough Gypsy.”