Having escaped Parcels, the bassist and vocalist Noah Hill mourns the end of a romantic relationship on a debut solo album of remarkable beauty. It sits between rural folk and pop songwriting.
In the past few years, we have witnessed a number of solitary detours. Chaos for the Fly (2023) by Grian Chatten, Heavy Metal (2024) by Cameron Winter, Heavy Glory (2024) and Speak Daggers (2025) by Elias Rønnenfelt… All sublime, each one pursuing subtraction, a music that seeks to reconnect with the acoustic, the folk, the sound of strings brushing against each other to better hint at melancholy.
A year after the third album from his band (Loved), Noah Hill clearly felt the same breeze, the urge that nudges the most intimate people toward withdrawal, the urge that drives the most buoyant to confession. Ok ok now was born thus, in the most complete solitude — Noah Hill plays all the instruments and handles the mixing himself — but also in the idea of overcoming a romantic breakup, of putting words and notes to the contradictory feelings it carries.
Pop Vertigo
Quite miraculously, the Australian’s voice emerges from this trying period calm and ungrieved, never whining, always majestic, perfectly suited to the richness of these arrangements, though sparing in themselves. Inevitably, in this woodsy and classically shaped music you hear echoes of Simon & Garfunkel – impossible not to listen to the vocal harmonies in Once in a Lifetime and think of The Boxer – of Vampire Weekend, in the way it favors a folk that intimately knows the seductive power of pop (It’s All In My Head), of Neil Young, of Nick Drake and many others who swear by choruses that promise eternity.
Delicate Ballads
These twelve tracks, including three interludes and a brief piano lament, largely paint Noah Hill as a true songwriter; a clearly benevolent choice. The Parcels lineage is undeniably present — elevate Heaven with funk guitars and you get a variation on the same theme as Tobeloved or Somethinggreater — but Ok ok now deftly avoids the trap of crude mimicry to confront intimate, calm ballads that find their full measure in bare arrangements.
You can clearly hear what might have been considered — tearful violins that order the sadness on Love You Now, for example — but was ultimately not kept, out of concern for efficiency and accuracy, in these songs with light airs and deep reflections. Proof of this are Like You Do, placed at the end, already among the most touching pop songs heard this year.
Ok ok now (Because). Out on September 4.
