walking upstream…
Novo Amor
Novo Amor is the stage name of Ali John Meredith-Lacey, a Welsh multi-instrumentalist and producer who builds hushed, reverb-soaked folk out of layered falsetto harmonies, ambient guitar textures, and wide-open negative space. His 2014 breakout EP "Woodgate, NY" and 2018 debut album "Birthplace" turned him into a favorite for trailers and sync placements, and a direct sonic touchstone for a wave of quiet, atmospheric bedroom-acoustic artists that followed.
the sound in question
2015
AnchorNovo Amor
walk the tributaries ↓
Bon Iver2010s · Indie folk / Folk / Experimental
In a 2017 interview Novo Amor called Bon Iver's self-titled second album "one of the most original albums I've heard," saying it "came into my life at the right moment and was like nothing I'd heard before." That hushed, multi-tracked falsetto harmony stacked into something almost orchestral runs straight through his own records.
listen: upstream & heresource: musicmusingsandsuch interview (2017) — Novo Amor on Bon Iver, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and James Vincent McMorrow as influences ↗
2007
Skinny LoveBon Iver
2018
Repeat Until Death (Chapter II)Novo Amor
listen forListen for the way Novo Amor layers his own voice into a wordless choir behind the lead line on "Repeat Until Death," echoing how Justin Vernon builds "Skinny Love" from looped, overlapping vocal takes.
James Vincent McMorrow2010s · Folk / Soul / Alternative R&B
Novo Amor has said McMorrow's debut "Early in the Morning" "was one of the first albums that really got me into Folk and 'acoustic' music," arriving "at exactly the right time." The soft, high, near-falsetto male voice over plainly picked acoustic guitar that defines McMorrow's early sound is close to the vocal register and hushed folk mode Novo Amor builds his own songs around.
listen: upstream & heresource: musicmusingsandsuch interview (2017) — Novo Amor on Bon Iver, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and James Vincent McMorrow as influences ↗
2010
If I Had a BoatJames Vincent McMorrow
2017
ColourwayNovo Amor
listen forListen for the same soft, high-register vocal tone on Novo Amor's "Colourway" that first drew him into acoustic folk on McMorrow's "If I Had a Boat."
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young1960s-70s · Folk rock / Country rock / Rock
Novo Amor has said, "I do love slide-guitar! Crosby, Stills and Nash are definitely influential to me in that sense" (naming the trio specifically, cross-linked here to the charted Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young node). That warm, ringing open-tuned guitar tone threading through their harmony-heavy folk-rock shows up in the acoustic bed underneath his own songs.
listen: upstream & here
1970
2014
CallowNovo Amor
listen forListen for the ringing, sustained open-string guitar figure under "Ohio" and compare it to the similarly spacious guitar tone anchoring Novo Amor's "Callow."