First Impressions: “Plastic Flowers” by Nichole Wagner

The title track from Austin-based singer-songwriter Nichole Wagner’s forthcoming album feels as if it’s been around forever and a day. It’s that good. In a more hyperbolic mode, I might write that it’s as if the song was plucked fully formed from the collective unconscious—or, for those who eschew the Carl Jung theory in favor of quantum physics-related hypotheses, lucked into it while surfing the lattice-like wave that connects all human consciousnesses. 

In truth, neither suffices once she and/or Justin Douglas strums the electric guitar at song’s start. The chords rain down throughout, while Wagner sings of writing letters she never intends to send and unfurls wry ripostes to a broken heart she hopes will mend. A piano run (courtesy of Charlie Pierce) conjures similar breaks in many a Nanci Griffith tune, when the Blue Moon Orchestra’s James Hooker would figuratively go to town. (Geena Sprigarelli handles bass, I should probably mention, while Gregory Clifford plays drums.)

“Riposte” is likely the wrong word choice on my part. That aside, Wagner has a way with observations that cut to the bone. She opens with an admission sure to hit home with many: “I’ve never seen the northern lights/I never take my own advice.” Another favorite: “Everything is made of mirror and smoke/What we thought would bend just broke.” 

Thanks to backing the project on Kickstarter, I’ve lived with the album since September 2023, when she shared it with her backers. I’ve played it many, many times since, so can confidently say that—like the title track—it borrows from the old while feeling new, just as many of my favorite albums do. Also, despite my silly conjecture in the first paragraph, there’s no luck involved here; Wagner is a talented singer and songsmith who, in another era, would already be signed to Rounder Records (or similar artist-friendly label).

I’ll have more to say about it upon the album’s official release on June 7th.