Ramona Gonzalez aka Nite Jewel began her music project in 2008 and she has yet to cease her brilliant creations. A year after the formation of her new moniker, Gonzalez released her debut album titled Good Evening. Aside from her music career, Nite Jewel has also had her hand on some multimedia art around the city of Los Angeles, most notably her piece The Question Concerning Technology.

Now, a year after the release of her album Real High, Nite Jewel has released two new tracks; “On Your Own” and “The Jokes On You.”

The latter of the two, “On your Own,” begins with a heavy synth line and a beautiful low-fi guitar sound. The two drop out as quickly as they entered before the sweet honey vocals of Nite Jewel along with the gated synth and funky bass line drop in like a nice surprise. The song has a very early Madonna feel especially with Nite Jewel’s vocals, but the music brings the song to place of bright colors and disco lights. If you were looking to have some fun in the realm of Cindy Lauper or Madonna, then you have arrived.

Her second single, though, titled “The Jokes On You” begins with a fun bright bass-type digital synth playing two notes before an airy synth note punches in. The two alternate, almost forming a beat, before an analog synth plays some nicely colored crunchy chords. Nite Jewel begins to sing and one can almost hear Prince or Michael Jackson singing right beside her, giving use a lovely homage for the ears. The music has a calming simplicity to it while Gonzalez’s vocals give a more metallic quality, bringing out most of the emotion in the song.

When talking about her new music, Nite Jewel has some beautiful words of wisdom:

“While I’m not a stranger to worlds of turmoil and chaos, the current cultural climate has led me to an unprecedented sense of angst. Although in the past with my music, I was often able to glean a partial hope or at least some humor in my critical examinations of the present, it is now that I find myself falling into seemingly inescapable nihilistic spirals. And yet… what if there were some sort of transcendence that could emerge from coming face to face with the debased nature of humanity and its inevitable, narcissistic self-destruction? Not to be confused with hope in some pseudo-religious promise of a better world, but the letting go of one’s tight grasp of a cogent reality, a formula that makes sense, the perceived anthropomorphic center of the universe? I find something freeing in that possibility; looking outward instead of inward, reveling in something that no longer includes the premise of the self.”

Listen to both “On Your Own” and “The Jokes On You” on any streaming service and have a nice little party to dance to!

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat