courtesy photo
words by Chance Solem-Pfeifer
Along with a few thousand other students, Nick Dahlquist graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this past spring.
And with that degree comes uncertainty, myriad potential life directions and insecurities. I’m sure graduates had their soundtrack for it — songs of freedom and doubt.
Well, Dahlquist has his own, too. Only, he wrote it. After earning his music composition degree in May, the singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist and arranger rode the wave of a successful Kickstarter into the studio with Philip Zach this summer to break ground on an EP. It’s Dahlquist's second recorded effort.
But if last year’s Out of My Skin was a showcase of how much sonic space Dahlquist could fill with a fluid and bright guitar and a classically honed pop voice, this EP, Questions, is more like a professionally produced curriculum vitae.
If the lyrical content of Dahlquist’s EP (with its grand and pressing questions on life, happiness and the future) begs the title Questions, musically, the title might have been Answers.
On the record, Dahlquist finds his enormous aptitude for technical cleanliness supported by legions of instruments and studio effects, adding full band arrangements including guitars, drums, bass and some strings. The album also runs the gamut of the Dahlquist's genre and style tastes with everything from jazz piano to vocal chamber music to Jason Mraz-ian pop stylings.
He brought them all into the studio on Hear Nebraska FM on Thursday. Ladies and gentleman, Nick Dahlquist:
Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska's staff writer and the host of Hear Nebraska FM. Join us next week on the program for Skypiper. Reach Chance at chancesp@hearnebraska.org.