Nick Zanca may be the first musician to spend a decade making hazy ambient only to pivot to grand, Sondheimian pop music. The New York songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and engineer boldly bursts into a new sonic realm on Hindsight, aided by a murderer’s row of collaborators. From the first seconds of “Not An Artist (BGM),” drama is the curtain with which we wrap ourselves. “Bleed through the page / and pray you make the playlist / so you get paid” go the first words on the album, cutting through a decade of streaming service bullshit. Across eight tracks and heartstrings tugged in manifold directions, Zanca crafts a portrait of the artist as a nervous wreck, hopefully and regretfully pursuing an artform tainted by a leech-filled ecosystem and late-stage hellscape. “My darling predator,” he coos over plinking pianos, singing from inside the toxic codependency of the music industry. Whether the predator is a corporate rights holder, a Swedish CEO, or a blissfully ignorant listener, you’re invited to the show.
The last few years have found Zanca in serial collaborator mode, contributing to and producing records by Wendy Eisenberg, Lucy Liyou, and Sweet Dreams Nadine; forming Quiet Friend with Steven Rogers; and an unexpected credit on a PARTYNEXTDOOR album. His decade on the chillwave scene as Mister Lies brought him here, leading a band of New York’s finest experimentalists into electroacoustic AOR and introspection — a producer’s singer-songwriter album. Zanca and company jaunt through songs about credit card debt, neurodivergence, and nonmonogamy, all the while brandishing gleaming melodies and an understated musical universe. “Little Professor” goes into septuplet meter, revisiting a childhood Asperger’s diagnosis with groove and a profound lack of alienation. That sense of otherness is all-too-familiar to any kid who underwent similar “education” back in the day; rather than just bemoan a shitty system, Zanca sings “When he comes of age / he’ll outgrow what overwhelms him / and leave you wondering / why you did not pay close attention.” The twinkle in his youthful eye blinded supposedly-caring supporters and he left them all behind, wearing his idiosyncrasies as a multi-hyphenate crown. As someone who underwent something very similar, it’s deeply special to hear a song from this point-of-view.
“Screen Test” and “Debt We Pay” delve further into our capitalistic realm of punishment. The former finds Zanca ceaselessly auditioning for success (or even just money for groceries and rent) and lost in the façade-like plot, numb to former delights. The latter, co-written with Rogers, begins with a laundry list of touring chores and spends seven minutes trying to outrun its own burnout. Ben Chapoteau-Katz’s sax solo launches into the atmosphere, honking gleefully to sweet heaven, only for the song to collapse in upon itself in a heartbeat. “Your empathy is the cross you bear upon your back” is a hell of a lyric, nailing the burden of trying to support friends and collaborators while barely able to self-sustain under present circumstances. “Softshoe” highlights Zanca’s earnest and warm vocals, emboldened with falsetto and gorgeous harmonies.
Hindsight’s title track bears the closest resemblance to the waveless, beautiful noise most commonly made by many of the record’s performers, from L’Rain’s dreamworld electronics to Eisenberg’s endless guitar inventions to more eaze’s blossoming soundscapes. Starting out ambient, guitars and vocals come after a minute, pushing spiky emotions to the surface. Chapoteau-Katz’s gusting sax and Mari Maurice’s pedal steel color the corners of Zanca’s doomed musings, holding fast in its tension. It’s impossible not to recognize how much of the world we’re born into is built on the back of others’ suffering and how much there is to unlearn and fight against. After everything, no matter how hopeless it may continue to feel, there’s a way forward to be figured out — it will just take a while to get there. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.
Written by Aly Eleanor
