With Bulli, Velvet Negroni takes us on a rocky, trippy ride

Jeremy Nutzman, who makes music as Velvet Negroni, was adopted by a white evangelical Christian family (he’s Black) and grew up taking rigorous piano lessons. His parents forbid him to listen to secular music, and to say they were strict about it is an understatement: in a 2019 interview with the Fader, Nutzman described dismantling air vents to hide contraband CDs, only to have them discovered anyway. But just like cave plants grow toward the faintest glimmer of sunlight, creativity has a way of blossoming under constraint. In college Nutzman got involved with his local noise scene (he notably became a member of Marijuana Deathsquads) and later made experimental, genre-blending music with the project Pony Bwoy. When that dissolved, he turned his focus to Velvet Negroni. His 2017 debut, T.C.O.D., landed him a deal with 4AD, where he released the dark, sparse, and trippy Neon Brown in 2019. On its surface, his latest record, Bulli, might feel lighter than its predecessor—its opening track, called “Pop Song 2,” features an upbeat guitar and closes with a club-worthy retro dance rhythm. But despite its moments of joy, this is music born of tumult, including a fire at Nutzman’s home and studio space; the foreboding rumble of “The Foreigner” evokes a voyage across a stormy sea. The sonic experiments on Bulli don’t consistently work, but even the failures sound like an artist forging an individual musical language. And when they hit, they hit hard: the lush “Animal” mixes wavering synth lines with hypnotic percussive rhythms, and the soulful, keyboard-driven “Ebony Eggshell” feels ready to be one of the first sleeper hits of 2023.

Velvet Negroni’s Bulli is available through Bandcamp.

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