Is there any way music can sound beautiful and unnerving at the same time? That’s the question that kept coming to mind while listening to Mary Westlake’s NOSTALGiA.

There’s so much beauty here, from the melodies to the vocals, but it’s often surrounded by sounds that seem to bend and distort everything around them. The music can feel dreamy and inviting one moment, then strange and unsettling the next. It’s like trying to get your bearings in a place that looks familiar but somehow doesn’t feel quite right.

Musically, the album is fascinating. Ambient textures, electronic beats, jazz, indie pop, and fuzzy guitar rock all find their way into the arrangements, sometimes in unexpected combinations that never feel forced.

Westlake’s voice is just as versatile, shifting between ghostly layers of overlapping vocals, soft and dreamy passages, and a direct, grounded rock delivery. She can change the mood and color of a song without ever sounding out of place, becoming another instrument in arrangements that seem to stretch beyond familiar boundaries.

“Santa Ana Winds” establishes the album’s dreamy atmosphere with overlapping vocals that compete for space, their voices becoming distorted and indistinct over a steady, almost trap-like beat. There’s something spectral about the effect, but the music never loses its pull. The surrounding sounds create the sensation of bobbing along in water, carried wherever the current takes you.

“Skyy” takes that floating sensation somewhere stranger. Strings that sound as if they belong in an old Hollywood movie score mingle with environmental sounds, ghostly vocals, and a steady drumbeat. It’s an unlikely combination, as if The Wizard of Oz were directed by David Lynch. The contrast between its familiar cinematic quality and everything swirling around makes for one of the album’s most wonderfully surreal moments.

With “Lies,” the vocals move closer to the foreground. Synths drift through an electronic pop arrangement, a foghorn-like sound cuts across the mix, and the steady beat keeps the song moving. Westlake stretches her voice across the arrangement before settling into a more direct delivery, making the performance feel more immediate than it did on the opening tracks. The lyrics suggest someone struggling to move on from a relationship, caught between regret over what happened and the desire to convince themselves they can leave it behind.

That uncertainty takes on a darker character in “Hazzzy.” A surprisingly funky beat anchors keys and fuzzy, guitar-like sounds that seem to undulate around the multilayered vocals. The effect is less like listening to an echo than being inside one. The song itself seems intoxicated, swaying as though it can’t quite keep its balance. The lyrics hint at a relationship coming apart, but without a clear understanding of why. Rather than a dramatic breakup, there’s a feeling of watching something slip away while still trying to figure out what went wrong.

“Red” changes the mood again, opening with a smooth, almost lounge-like jazziness before gradually building into something much heavier. Chiming guitars gather momentum until they form a dark, fuzzy wall of sound, while Westlake’s voice recedes into the background. The transformation has a shoegaze quality, and the yearning vocal atmosphere brings Jeff Buckley’s “Mojo Pin” to mind. I’m fascinated by how the song moves between these two worlds, starting out so smooth before winding itself into something far more forceful.

After that intensity, “always thought that” feels like a softer landing. Its lush indie-pop arrangement has a warmth that comes through despite the layers of distortion and psychedelic coloring. The lyrics reflect on the hope that life will eventually fall into place, particularly through finding someone who makes it feel fuller again. But the song doesn’t offer a simple resolution. There’s still a sense of searching, of realizing that even love doesn’t necessarily resolve everything.

“always thought that theme” continues the melody and mood of its predecessor, though a deep, fuzzy bass or guitar line pushes its way through the arrangement beneath Westlake’s vocalizations. The melody remains beautiful, but the heavier sound makes it harder to settle into. That contrast between something lovely and the sounds obscuring it has become a defining feature of the album.

The closing “Tired” brings a different kind of weight to that feeling. Fuzzy, chiming guitars give the song a mournful, yearning quality. Westlake sings with a directness that contrasts with the ghostly, floating vocals heard earlier on the album. There’s a raw vulnerability here, with the lyrics circling around the fear of losing someone who has been a source of goodness in an otherwise uncertain world. The song feels grounded and emotionally exposed, even as the guitar seems to ache around her voice.

What makes NOSTALGiA so interesting is how much musical ground it covers without losing its identity. The leap from the floating atmosphere of “Santa Ana Winds” to the yearning guitar rock of “Tired” is startling, and the turns in between can knock you off balance. Styles and sounds intersect in ways that might seem incompatible on paper, yet the album never feels clunky or haphazard. It’s creative, distinctive, and unlike much else I’ve heard.

Listening to the album as a whole, I kept thinking about a long, restless night. You’re tossing and turning, drifting between memories and dreams, waking up in the middle of the night and trying to make sense of thoughts that don’t quite come together. There’s beauty in those moments, but also loneliness, uncertainty, and the feeling that you can’t quite settle into yourself.

I’m not sure NOSTALGiA offers any answers, but its beautiful, unsettled music captures that feeling of searching for peace without quite finding it. Like a long night that never seems to end, it leaves you with plenty to turn over in your mind. It’s an unusual, rewarding album that takes you somewhere you didn’t expect to go.

Verdict: Good

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