Crib Notes

Nomen Novum’s Paradises unravels its gorgeous document of electronic and acoustic textures over a shimmering backdrop of hypnotic loneliness. It’s not quite appropriate to label such songs as “The Color of Water” and “Miracles Come True” minimalist, but each one builds upon looping and layered cycles of drone and bliss. The title track unfolds with glacial elegance through a series of fugue-like movements. “(Your Heart is Like a) Lovewave” booms with the album’s first major chops on an electric guitar that arcs and fades into lyrical meanderings. Taking in the album through headphones reveals scattered bits of wailing sirens, chirping birds and disembodied voices hiding throughout the record. The resulting mashup of sparkling primitivism and dream-pop billows into an aural cloud of majesty and melancholy that’s ethereal, experimental and refreshingly ornate. (Operation Get Jacked!) 4 stars out of 5

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While experimental indie rock duo Nomen Novum patiently await the arrival of the physical copies of their forthcoming LP, Paradises, they’re offering a free stream of the album at NomenNovum.net.

This album is the follow up to their Room for Rent EP and the “Mantis Man” 7-inch.

Track list:
The Color of Water
Strength in Weakness
The Garden / Paradises 2
Paradises
(Your Heart Is Like) A Lovewave
Man-Man-Lade
Miracles  Come True
Paradises 3

Nomen Novum plays NoPhest at WonderRoot on Fri., Aug. 28, and at the Earl on Sun., Oct. 11 with Bear in Heaven.

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B.B. KING As living legends go, King’s still vital on stage, his new album is his finest in decades — it’s worth the inflated ticket price to see him somewhere other than Chastain. $65.50-$86.50. 7:30 p.m. The Tabernacle. 404-659-9022. www.livenation.com. — HH

GANG GANG DANCE, RAINBOW ARABIA, NOMEN NOVUM Gang Gang Dance stands tall at the forefront of New York’s indie avant-garde by crafting a jumbled mass of dance-art-punk-electro skronks. Likeminded acts Rainbow Arabia from Los Angeles, and local freak rock duo Nomen Novum open. $10-$12. 9 p.m. The Earl. 404-522-3950. www.badearl.com. — CR

(Photo Credit: www.bbkingclubs.com)

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Each week the folks at HaveyouHeard.net set the stage for a band to play a free show at Cabbagetown hipster spot, 97 Estoria. After these show the band sticks around to spin records and keep the party going as long as the law will allow. This week local freak rock duo Nomen Novum holds it down, with an opening set from Baltimore’s Future Islands.

Music starts at 9 p.m.

For those who are unfamiliar, Nomen Novum is one of the more recent weirdo psych/art rock acts to come together in Atlanta. Their debut “Mantis Man,” “Aunt Urn” b/w “Vinyl” 7-inch was released a few months back on Operation Get Jacked! The green-vinyl offering features three of the coolest and catchiest, rounds of acid-drenched acoustic minimalism and strummed punk anthems I’ve heard in a while. The record didn’t come with any kind of formal press materials, but it did come with a post-it note that says, “not garage punk,” which says an awful lot about their spirit.

“Aunt Urn” MP3

Have You Heard Session: Nomen Novum from HaveYouHeard on Vimeo.

(Photo by Joseph Velazquez)

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