Perfection is an impossibility. By extension, it can be a crippling thing to pursue. The longer you seek it out, the more it remains out of reach. Meanwhile, it feeds on your doubt and disillusion. Instead of embracing progress and the good, you obsess over perceived flaws. Little, if anything, matches your expectations. And so you tinker and tweak and tinker some more, searching for that improbable breakthrough. As time passes, momentum shrinks. Fear of failure looms. Eventually you quit the pursuit and stash it away for no one to see or hear.

David Norbery (Nomen Novum, Sisterwife) has long had a punishing relationship with perfection. As a child, well before he knew how to play an instrument, Norbery would write and record, filling cassettes with improvised songs. He would design covers and write liner notes, only to hide the music from the world. As he grew older and developed his talent, the aim towards perfectionism only worsened. As a result, troves of promising songs have been left abandoned—entire albums worth of material discarded and shelved away.

He pins much of the blame for his affliction on his father, who had his own furious struggles with perfectionism. An artist with a tendency towards extreme self-criticism, his father would destroy many of his paintings before anyone else could see them. And although he enjoyed and appreciated much of his son’s music, he also found plenty to criticize in it. To hear Norbery tell it, he sees many of his tendencies as inherited traits.

“Parents see their kids as extensions of themselves, so they criticize, and that pattern gets passed down,” he explains. “My definition of ‘success’ has changed so much over the decades that I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of failure (or success). But, as a musician, I have a hard time ‘playing’ without a very specific end goal in mind—the finished piece. And recording at home with a computer and no time constraints allows me tweak things endlessly, which is super unhealthy!”

In an effort to break the cycle, many of Nobery’s most recent recordings are exercises in letting go enforced by strict limitations. This includes his latest single as Night Heron, the pulsing, beautifully elegiac “You’ll Never Be Satisfied.”

Originally intended as a jab at his dad, the title reflects both an acknowledgment and acceptance of his perfectionist disorder. Built around his 1955 Wurlitzer electric piano, the 11-minute track was largely improvised and recorded mostly live. It’s a remarkable piece—gorgeously haunting, mediative, and grand, like a distant sunrise peeking through a rolling fog. In many ways it feels far removed from the fizzing atmospheres and icy electronica that populated Night Heron’s 2021 debut, Careworn. But if there is a point of convergence, it’s in Norbery’s ability to inject catharsis within otherwise ambiguous soundscapes.

Although “You’ll Never Be Satisfied” doesn’t exactly project joy, there’s a pervading sense of hope that resonates throughout. Whether or not that optimism lingers on future works remains to be seen; for now Norbery seems content with embracing the journey and accepting the unknown.

“I released my first Night Heron album in 2021, so some of the tracks I’m considering for the follow-up aren’t particularly new,” Norbery says. “The older pieces tend to be more rhythmic and some of them have almost a baroque element to them. I would say the more recent material is more minimal, often improvised live, and with a lot of experimentation with room microphones and different recording technologies. Songs that are also about hearing. So, I’m still not sure how it will all come out. I may end up with two records or an album and an EP. ‘You’ll Never Be Satisfied’ probably fits in better with the newer batch, but I’m leaning toward keeping it as a standalone thing.”

Listen below.

More Info
Bandcamp: nightheronsounds.bandcamp.com
Instagram: @night_heron_sounds
SoundCloud: @night_heron