Touring through different cultural areas makes up a large part of Ramona Gonzalez’s musical career.
The singer, songwriter and creative mind behind the electric-pop project Nite Jewel will perform with Chairlift on Wednesday at One Eyed Jacks in New Orleans, but when she began touring she traveled to European cities as culturally vibrant as the streets of the French Quarter. These experiences proved inspiring for her work.
“All the different people you meet and all of the personalities are definitely brain food,” she said. “All of the imagery that implants on your mind will come up later when you’re looking for a concept to write about.”
Gonzalez got an important start in 2008, when she began self-producing her early music, touring within the U.S., balancing work for an undergraduate degree in philosophy and garnering enough support to tour Europe shortly after.
Gonzalez said her first tour helped her appreciate the South because of its warm reception.
“Baton Rouge was one of the best shows we had,” she said. “The whole South has been some of my best experiences because people are really warm and respond really well to our sound.”
She has since produced a number of singles, EPs and two albums, 2008’s “Good Evening,” and the March-released “One Second Love,” which Gonzalez explained features different production than her prior work.
“I’ve released a lot of stuff since then,” she said. “[‘One Second Love’] is very different from the record before, which was not really collaborative at all and was recorded in between other things. I didn’t have a lot of focus on it 100 percent like I did on this record.”
While Gonzalez traveled through both Baton Rouge and New Orleans previously, Wednesday’s show will offer her an opportunity to show off “One Second Love,” which she said adds more energetic tracks and vibes to her live shows.
“Those songs are really fun to play live,” she said “They’re meant for a band to play them, so they have a lot of visceral connection with the audience.”
Nite Jewel also refashioned older tunes to better create a lively show. While Gonzalez’s older music features imitations of bass, drums and other elements, Nite Jewel’s current tour has featured a full band to clearly create each musical component.
“We’ve retooled the older stuff as well so it all comes across that way,” Gonzalez explained. “It’s a lot huger than you would expect from listening to the older recordings.”
Gonzalez explained she finished “One Second Love” long before its release and has been recording new material for the past year. She plans to travel to Europe and Australia and work on more recordings before Nite Jewel’s next tour.
“There’s a lot of different directions I’ve gone in as far as the recordings go, and I’m just trying to figure out what I want to keep for the next record,” she said.
Wednesday’s performance at One Eyed Jacks will began at 9 p.m., and tickets are priced at $15.
 
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Contact Austen Krantz at [email protected]