The Same as a Flower

Nagisa Ni Te (a.k.a. Shinji Shibayama and Masako Takeda) is back. Their new album The Same As A Flower, recorded between 2002 and 2004, is the third to be released stateside by Jagjaguwar. Much like their previous records, the songs are about nature, the singularity of two people immersed in nature together, and experiencing life as "being," not "becoming" or "recovering from." And like their previous full-length, The Same As A Flower brings to mind the very best of ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelic, progressive and folk rock (middle-era Pink Floyd, Roy Harper, 13th Floor Elevators and early Neil Young). In the beginning, Shinji Shibayama performed "hyped up dada-psych" in the early 1980s as part of Idiot O’Clock and the more toned-down Hallelujahs. Their psych folk tendencies notwithstanding, Nagisa Ni Te have done well to take cues from the avant rock world around them, comfortably implementing the minimalist credo "less is more" throughout their body of work.