Dan "the Automator" Nakamura

Nathaniel Merriweather Presents...Lovage: Music to Make Love To Your Old Lady By

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Editor's Review:

From Dr. Octagon to Deltron 3030 to the Handsome Boy Modeling School to Gorillaz, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura’s signature is all over some of the hippest music projects of the last five years, and his latest effort — released under his Handsome Boy Modeling School moniker — Lovage: Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By, is another one of these hipster-genius projects that blends the backbone of hip-hop with other forms of music. In this case, it’s primarily love songs.
The Automator’s choice of collaborative partners on this album is, in itself, worth note — Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Fantômas) and Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), as well as Kid Koala and Afrika Bambaataa — but there is so much more about Lovage that’s worth the price of admission. Patton and Jennifer’s vocal interplay is stylistically varied, creating serious passages of duet and solo vocals that can range from dishearteningly painful to steamy, sexy, guttural and lecherous, but can also display lightheartedness and playfulness, expressed poignantly in a mutated cover of Berlin’s “Sex (I’m A).”
Of course, the involvement of Dan The Automator is typically a compelling seal of quality, and Lovage represents a soulful, down-tempo direction in the Bay Area producer’s music. Lazily unfolding piano licks stretch out over slow and low beats, utilizing jazz and other soft, folksy styles (bass, guitar, etc) to create songs that both provide a background for Patton and Jennifer’s vocals, but also construct instrumental numbers that stand on their own. And they are all about the love…

– Max Sidman
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