Nested is the seventh studio album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist LAURA NYR0, released in 1978 by Columbia Records.
Following on from her extensive tour to promote 1976's Smile, which resulted in the 1977 live album Season of Lights, NYR0 retreated to her new home in Danbury, Connecticut, where she lived after spending her time in the spotlight in New York City.
NYR0 had a studio built at her home, and recorded the songs that comprised Nested there. The songs deal with themes such as motherhood and womanhood, and it is a notably more relaxed NYR0 that sings on the album. The instrumentation is laid back and smooth, similar to that of Smile, but perhaps less jazz-inspired and more melodic. NYR0 was assisted in production by Roscoe Harring, while Dale Ashby and Pop Ashby were chief engineers.
Critics praised the album as a melodic return to form, and NYR0 supported the album with a solo tour when she was heavily pregnant with her son Gil, who was born two months after the album was released. Despite acclaim and a melodic, arguably more commercial sound, Nested was not a commercial success and became NYR0's first album since her 1967 debut More Than A New Discovery to miss the Billboard 200, then known as the Pop Albums chart.
Such was its commercial failure that it remains out of print, and is unquestionably NYR0's least-known and most rare studio album. After the birth of her son in August 1978, NYR0 retreated once again from the limelight after a three-year return to raise her son. She would not record for another five years, and her recording pattern became increasingly intermittent. Nested is recognized as one of LAURA NYR0's most underrated works.
Nested is the first of two "maternal" LAURA NYR0 albums, and NYR0 appears to revel in her new domesticity. Her marriage had broken down, but she had found love again and the sound is notably more relaxed than before.
FELlX CAVALlERE returns to play piano and organ on some songs, while NYR0 produces with Roscoe Harring. The origins of NYR0's feminist and environmental political and social explorations in her lyrics of the 1980s and 1990s can be traced back to Nested.
Nested was briefly released on CD in Japan only and is now out of print. It remains the most rare of LAURA NYR0's original albums.
It was her first album in 11 years not to make the American pop charts.
It was her final album for more than five years, as she brought up her son, who was born two months after the album release.
NYR0 supported the album with a tour while heavily pregnant.
There have been rumours circulating the net that Nested may finally be properly released domestically on CD. Let's hope!
