Gentle Psychedelic Soul of Crooner Nick Hakim

New York singer/songwriter Nick Hakim has been producing records of gently psychedelic soul here for almost a decade.  Occasionally, he drops the gentle psychedelia in favor of something more obviously trippy – it happens several times on his newest album, Cometa. (The title is Spanish for “kite,” although the American-born Hakim sings in English.) He is one of those singers whose voice rarely seems to rise above a whisper – and though he’s probably sick of being compared to the ill-starred but still-mythic English folkie Nick Drake, Hakim’s songs can sound a little like Nick Drake fronting a psychedelic soul band from the early 70s. Nick Hakim and his band perform these songs in-studio.  (-John Schaefer)

Set list: Vertigo, Happen, Feeling Myself