Noraaa's Piece of Mind is a well-rounded debut chock-full of soul, encapsulating a poignant brand of early-adulthood vulnerability.
Reviewed by Troy Embe, edited by Ash
Take a moment to listen to Piece of Mind through Noraaa's Distrokid Hyperfollow page, which contains the links to the project on Spotify, Apple Music, and iTunes!
FEW THINGS ARE AS UNIVERSAL as the experience of moving away from home for the first time—that first night spent sleeping in a bed that feels different from the one you grew up with, in a freshman dorm that is now your new home, across from some snoring stranger from Florida with whom you now share a living space. Those memories of freshman year are of the kind which I suspect will remain quite vivid for the rest of my life, as eighteen-year-old Troy (which is not my real name!) battled the disorientation of being plucked from a familiar place and dropped smack dab into the chaos of New York City. Evidently, as much as a formative experience as that first month away from home was for me personally, I am not the only one, as judging from her 2021 debut EP, Piece of Mind, I suspect that Noraaa, known to those of us in MTech as Nora Deely, went through a similar experience. Though this EP is just as much about love as it is about youth, Piece of Mind occupies a place in my mind that is uniquely associated with that experience of growing up and moving to a new city, and it conveys the awe and wonder of this experience through a hefty helping of warm, bedroom pop-flavored soul music imbued with a lot of musical skill. In short, Nora's first EP is an enjoyable collection of songs that serves as an effective introduction to Noraaa as an artist, showcasing her earnest songwriting, mesmerizing vocals, and nostalgic DIY production sensibilities in equal measure.
"I started writing the songs for Piece of Mind in August 2020 when I first moved to New York… It had always been a goal of mine to come out with an EP, but when I first started writing the songs I didn't think about if I would make an EP out of them, I just wanted to express my feelings." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa
"Infatuated" opens the story with watery guitar chords and reverb-soaked, intimate vocals. "Girl, where'd you come from?" Nora sings, her loose, flowing vibrato and plaintive delivery already solidifying her as a natural fit for this brand of old school R&B. The guitar plays warm, descending, chromatic seventh chords with a distinctly amateur-feeling vibe—by no means do I wish to say that the guitar here is badly performed, and on the contrary, I actually think it gives the music a very nice, bedroom pop feel. The chorus serves as a continuation of this aesthetic, as Nora's vocals soar into a wondrous falsetto and sparse drums and bass enter underneath. The soundscape is dripping with character, and thoroughly avoids feeling "sterile" in the way lots of studio pop songs do. The slight variations in timing between the guitar and the bass, the heavy reverb that fully saturates the listening space, Nora's expressive, tuneful, yet soft & restrained vocals—all of these things contribute to feeling like I'm sitting in Nora's freshman-year dorm room, watching her sit on the bed and work out the chords to this song on her guitar. It was here where it became evident to me that Piece of Mind was not meant to be digested as a piece of overpolished, Top 40 pop radio. It's meant to be consumed on its own terms, as a project that embraces its status as a debut, and all the imperfections implied by that status. It implies a sense of self-acceptance that I find very endearing, and shines through every facet of this project. The second chorus is followed by a key change, wherein Nora sings about coming to terms with the possibility that the person who is the object of the titular infatuation doesn't feel the same way. The mood of this key change is superb, and Nora's closing line of "And you probably don't feel the same way I do/And that's okay, that's just… fine" ends our opening track on a resolutely sad yet strangely hopeful & mature note, as the last chord fades out into the gentle electronic buzz of Nora's guitar.
The second track, "Let Go", introduces the first synthesizer appearance on the album, as a set of natural minor pad chords open this track. Nora delivers breathy mixed-voice passages as the backing track slowly builds and expands to include a bell-like synth countermelody and an analog synth bass. Nora seems to like giving her vocals a chance to sit front and center to start her songs, at least judging by the openings of both this track and the previous one, and that tendency of hers pays off here, as she performs some beautiful melismas with confident precision. A swelling riser takes us into the chorus; Nora sings "you make me wanna let go" as a chorus of backing vocals enters alongside trap hi-hats and a heavy kick that makes this feel like a Summer Walker or Usher track. I felt I was missing the snare here, as it's pushed back into the mix so far that the groove starts to get lost. I also could have done with a more well-defined bass that cut through the mix a little better, though the chorus is nonetheless extremely catchy, and the chorus of backing vocals give the hook a somewhat cloying, manic feeling that makes "Let Go" a little removed from simply being a run-of-the-mill love song. It feels almost like panic, in a way, where Nora grapples with the desire to "let go", to give in, racing against the fear of being overwhelmed in the way young love tends to do. In conclusion, although the mix could have been improved in my opinion, the vibe of this track is still something to behold, making Nora's brief venture into the aesthetics of modern trap a successful one.
"The first song I wrote [for Piece of Mind] is 'Here Now', which is a groovy song about the exciting feeling of coming to a new place, leaving the past behind, and my inner thoughts about it all. A mix of optimism and anxiety about starting to pursue my dreams of a career in music… it was a great start to this project because as I created the EP, I was doing what I was singing about in "Here Now"… taking my fresh start and working to create my own music/achieve my dreams." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa
Track three, "Here Now", is a significantly more disco-influenced track than either of the previous two, propelled by a syncopated bassline over straightforward drums. The drum sound selection here was rather interesting—having opted for a reverb-heavy clap sound instead of a typical dry disco snare alongside prominent cowbells and shakers, the rhythmic palette is diverse and channels the funky atmosphere well. The chorus brings an offbeat shaker and layers of backing vocals, which together create a sense of the track expanding outwards and becoming larger in scope. Something felt tonally off to me in the song, though, and I began to notice it particularly during this section. I think what's happening is that the leading tone in Nora's vocal melody keeps colliding with the minor seventh in the bass and chords; it was a little distracting, but nothing so disquieting that it kept me from enjoying the track. I think the mix could also be improved slightly. The backing vocals have a tendency to overtake and overwhelm the lead vocal at points, and the heavy reverb results in a loss of definition that muddies the groove a little, but the song underneath is still superb either way. This is probably the track that most heavily leans into the EP's loose narrative theme of arriving in a new place, and its presentation parallels that theme as well. Nora's vocals convey a sense of underlying anxiety as she sings about how she "came here in the summertime, music on my mind"—there's a certain degree of confidence to it, but also a slightly nervous edge that my younger self would have resonated with had I heard this song at that age. Being thrust into adulthood isn't an easy experience for anyone, and Nora's presentation of that theme feels like a consistent oscillation between anxiety and cautious self-confidence that works really well. The entrance of the horns halfway through the track is also a really nice touch. To me, this feels like the first time walking down Broadway without your parents in tow, taking in all the sights and sounds of a new city as an adult. Something weird to note about this track is that at least on Apple Music, where I'm listening, there's an extra minute or so of silence at the end of the track. I am unsure if that's a mastering error of some sort, but I thought I should mention it. Either way, "Here Now" is a nice conveyance of the experience of emerging into adulthood, and the nods to funk & disco merge with Nora's established sound quite well.
"These Days", the fourth and penultimate track on the EP, opens with Nora singing about loneliness over a sweet Rhodes electric piano as sparse drums outline a 6/8 groove. There are some really cool modal changes here, as Nora employs occasional non-diatonicisms in the chord progressions that keep things constantly shifting in a way that feels simultaneously unexpected but also wholly natural. The vulnerability of the soundscape here positions this track as being our deepest window into Nora's soul yet, as she discusses coming to terms with "having a harder time moving through life". Nora's expression of the feeling of trying to work through anxiety in order to make someone proud who has passed on comes across as thoroughly earnest & heartfelt, and cements this song as one of my favorites on the record. By the end of the song, it's clear that Nora's singing to someone specific, as the song becomes almost a letter of sorts to Gabe, who I can only assume is someone who meant very much to Nora at one point. The specifics don't even really matter all that much here; it's obvious that Nora's coming from a truly sincere and genuine place, and that passion and emotion fully comes through in what makes for perhaps the EP's most emotionally impactful moment, when Nora's vocals soar into some stunning higher passages and gently take us out of the track. It feels like Nora poured out everything she had into this song, and so "These Days" is thoroughly successful, not only as a song, but also as an expression of grief, a dedication to a loved one, a message to someone who may never hear it. In short, it's a hell of a thing, and it cuts deep in a way not many songs do for me.
"…I think I started each song a little differently. I don't like to restrict myself to specific rules when creating art, I prefer to just do whatever feels right in the moment and see where that takes me. I know for the songs 'Infatuated' and 'Lately' I started writing those songs when I was practicing for my jazz guitar lessons. I was just messing around on my guitar and suddenly I played a really nice chord progression… just like that I started writing those songs with those chords as the bass." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa
The EP reaches its concluding track with a song called "Lately", which begins on sweet minor guitar chords and Nora's opening line of "Lately, I've been going crazy". The song mostly leaves us in this sparse soundscape of solely vocals and guitar, but the chord changes and melodic sweeps do plenty to keep us entertained, as Nora hits some dramatic vocal lifts and falls that almost reminded me of Whitney Houston in a way. Halfway through, the track switches up slightly, as the guitar switches from strummed chords to arpeggiated passages and the song's sole backing vocal is introduced. The song embraces a certain defiance of conventional pop structure; there's no clear hook or chorus that I can detect, and it mostly reads like one long verse, but I think that's appropriate for the song's subject matter, which is mostly a dedication to a love interest, and a promise that "we'll figure it out" no matter how difficult things get. It's a simple but wonderfully romantic emotional premise that Nora once again manages to totally sell, so the song's existence as an amoebic, flowing, somewhat formless idea doesn't bother me. Nora's songwriting and vocal abilities convey the emotion of this track perfectly, and the song's themes of forging ahead and taking on challenges as they come is a strong one on which to end the EP.
"It is hard sometimes to be a musician (especially a woman in music) because it is so easy to feel like you aren't good enough or you don't know enough. But when the music just flows out of me so naturally like that, I feel like I'm on top of the world. It is that feeling that makes me want to pursue music as a career." –Nora Deely a.k.a. Noraaa
Debut projects have always been something I have found fascinating, to a degree. I feel like debut projects are like capturing the moment when the rose blossoms, or the butterfly emerges from the cocoon, and as such, they can tell us a great deal about an artist right from the outset as they take their proverbial first steps. In keeping with this, I felt I learned a lot about both Nora the person and Noraaa the artist through Piece of Mind. This short, five-song EP is a snapshot of what it's like to land in a new city and all of a sudden be tasked with finding yourself, and Nora conveys the inherent vulnerability, uncertainty, insecurity, and emotional circumstance of this moment with a songwriter's voice that feels both unique and universal. She wields an economical pen, crafting lyrics that always manage to use few words to say a lot. Her production and musicianship follow similar trends. Piece of Mind never risks becoming overencumbered with elements, and Nora's songs universally make only a few elements—light guitar, sparse drums, a backing vocal here and there—feel like something much larger in scope, which in my view is a far more impressive feat than making a track with 300 stems in it. Perhaps most obviously, Nora is a hell of a singer, and brings a down-to-earth and vulnerable yet unwaveringly strong voice that suits her musical pocket perfectly. This blend of traits together comprise the biggest strength of this debut, specifically in that I was able to go into this project knowing nothing about Noraaa as an artist and come out of it with a very clear sense of who she is and what she is here to do—which to me is the standard to which all debuts should aspire.
That said, this EP is still rough around the edges, in a way, and I think the argument could be made that that is indeed part of its appeal, but I did consistently have thoughts about the project's mixing work. This project is soaked in reverb to the point where it sometimes makes things feel smeared or blurry, which prevented me from enjoying all of the details present in Nora's production and vocals. That said, as an aesthetic choice, I think it suits Nora perfectly. To be clear, I'm not talking about the Nora Deely of the present day—I'm talking about freshman year Nora, brand new to the city, searching for love in new places, slowly piecing together these songs in her dorm room. The EP captures the experience of budding adulthood like nothing else I've heard, and all of its idiosyncrasies only add to that magical quality. At the end of it all, I believe my single biggest knock against this record is how long Nora is making us wait for more music. However, even in this regard, Nora's preempted me, and has gladly shared with us the news that she hopes to have more music out soon! So stay tuned for that—I'm sure that many of us here in New York, myself included, are eager to see what the Nora of the present day is up to, given that the Nora from semesters long since passed was able to capture our hearts so well.
Personal enjoyment score: 8.5 out of 10
Standout tracks: "Infatuated", "These Days"
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