Joe Nora - Puzzle Face (2024)

Without chaos, there can be no clarity. Without soil, nothing will bloom. If life was devoid of challenges, art would become a series of dull plateaus. On his latest Friends of Friends album, the Bay-to-L.A. producer Joe Nora transcends the confusion with a work of startling beauty. His Puzzle Face is a series of colorful jumbles solved, existential paradoxes reconciled, phosphorescent beats floating above the grime of day-to-day existence.

The album’s genesis traces back to a period of stress and adversity. Nora found himself grappling with the big picture questions that plague us all: how does one survive financially while maintaining their sanity, physical health, and some semblance of normalcy? (whatever that might mean). He understood the need to rebuild from the ground up, but couldn’t ignore the daunting nature of such a radical overhaul. The only solution to the uncertainty was to go one step at a time, convert the ambiguity into a work of ingenuity, and re-assemble the pieces of the puzzle to discover the path forward.

The resulting mosaic embodies California cool and subterranean grit, sumptuous textures, and celestial levitation. It encompasses aqueous instrumental beat music, philosophical underground hip-hop, and soul-affirming alternative R&B. Puzzle Face reflects a coherent and introspective vision while simultaneously building a world of like-minded conspirators. At times, it recalls the ghostly wind chime soul of Teebs, the unquantized astral odysseys of Flying Lotus, and the ethereal funk of his FoF labelmates. Yet Nora’s vision is a singular reflection of his own left turns and limber experimentation.

It begins with the glistening thump of “Pink Salt,” where Nora questions what’s real and what’s fake in a world of grifters and thieves. With his voice a form of digitized lament, he searches for something decent and affirming, ultimately finding it in the effortless propulsion of the groove. The lead single, “Game On” summons an elysian mystery and tension – as if the fate of the world could be decided by anyone in a smoke-wreathed room, crowded with covert enemies and allies. The whispered words in the hook channel a sub-conscious trying to figure which direction to tread next. In a sense, they mirror the themes of the album: a deep introspection and almost mystic search for meaning.

The guests on the album feel like kindred spirits. On “Treehouse,” the surrealist vagabond Chester Watson invokes spaceships and superstition, but grounds the free-form reverie in villainous stick-ups and quests for cash. The Baton Rouge soothsayer Wakai delivers a buoyant hyper-melodic verse on “Loose Leaf” that sustains the ethos of prevailing against all odds. While “Aquarium” finds Criibaby decanting an ethereal wail that sounds like a 40s jazz legend filtered through trip-hop and transplanted in the modern world. And on “Sasha,” Leslie Marie croons a gorgeous and supple vocal that might fill the void for anyone missing Sade.

In its three-dimensionality, seamlessness, and immaculate textures, Puzzle Face marks a major leap from Nora’s already formidable body of work. You can see his eye for film photography and facility with the Super 8, as applied to the timeless scenes and tableaus that populate the album. It’s a gift that has led him to earn placements on the “Brain Food” and “Mellow Beats” playlist.

But Nora’s music is much more than pleasant background noise to vibe to. It’s a skeleton guy to finding something buried in your psyche. The aural equivalent of endlessly wandering through a maze until you are forced by necessity to discover the proper way to pivot. It’s the soundtrack to a life examined, scrutinized, and understood – at least until the record stops.