Press release –
Dwight + Nicole: Day or Night – In their own words
Nicole Nelson: We always head into recording sessions with a bunch of songs and song ideas in hand. Often, we run out of time before we can finish everything we set out to record. Other times, we have finished recordings that don’t fit with the album we’ve built. Day or Night is the product of whittling down a collection of 163 compositions, demos, and studio recordings.
Dwight Ritscher: We once again worked with Joel Hamilton, at Studio G in Brooklyn over the course of a week in January of 2025. The album is made up of a number of new recordings, and some of those songs we had recorded during previous sessions that didn’t fit with previous releases. We remastered all the existing tracks, as well as the rest of the album, with Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer Adam Ayan of Ayan Mastering.
Nicole: The new recordings include both recent and older compositions, songs like “Beautiful,” “Day or Night,” and a song Dwight’s been playing for years, “Straight Back to You.” For the first time ever, we included two cover songs, rearrangements of the Jenny Lewis composition, “Melt Your Heart,” and the Vince Clarke (of Depeche Mode, Yazoo/Yaz, Erasure) synth-pop classic, “Only You.” We re-recorded “On Top of the World,” a song I first recorded in a hurry back in 2012. We had Adam remaster “Silver Rocket,” “Wasting All My Time,” “In the Middle,” and “Wait for Me Tomorrow.” Finally, he also mastered existing mixes of “One Morning” and “Do the Best I Can.”
Dwight: “Beautiful” started out as a riff that I came up with at the home studio. Working with Nicole and Ezra, who laid down a rhythm to complete the groove, it was shelved for later exploration. We revisited the tune just before we stepped into Studio G this go-round. The evening before the first session was supposed to start, I worked out the verses and chorus in a coffee shop in Brooklyn.
Nicole: Dwight says that “Day or Night” was an unusual composition in the way that it came together. It started out as three different song ideas that slowly combined into a single tune. I lent the background vocals to support the chorus melody and interpreted Dwight’s mumbled place-keeper lyrics into the phrase “day or night.”
Dwight: I lived with a really good finger-picking guitar player, Zach Dupont. Watching him inspired me to try that style in composing a song. “Straight Back to You” was the result. Dwight + Nicole has been playing the song live since about 2013, but this is the first time we’ve recorded it in the studio.
Nicole: I am a huge Jenny Lewis fan, and Dwight also admires her music. I made a couple compositional refinements to the original “Melt Your Heart,” and we’ve been playing it live since the pandemic – first at the Paste Magazine live music series at Club Passim during the lockdown.
Dwight: We had never thought of recording a synth-pop song until our manager, Dennis Wygmans, played us the Yaz classic “Only You.” We worked out the tune on guitar in a different key than the original and crafted a different ending. Then Jon Solo took over in the studio, laying down layers of arpeggiated synths. Joel Hamilton’s production really shines in this tune, sweetening the sound and giving it a dream-pop vibe.
Nicole: Back in 2012, I wrote “On Top of the World” on the eve of entering the NBC TV competition “The Voice.” At the time, we lived above a Brookline, MA recording studio. The track was quickly laid down before I left town for the competition. It first appeared on the album Smile and was recorded in a hurry. We didn’t have time to give it its due. It was wonderful to be able to take our time in the studio and give the song the attention it deserves.
Dwight: We recorded “One Morning,” which was intended for a follow-up EP to The Raven, The Jaguar, and The Snake, but it sat in the can for a couple years. The song came to Nicole in a dream about the end of the world. It had not been mastered, and Adam did a fantastic job preserving the dynamic range of Joel’s mix.
Nicole: “Do the Best I Can” was recorded at the same session as “One Morning” and was also not yet mastered. Dwight wrote the song on the piano, and I wrote my verse to his live accompaniment in the studio.
Dwight: “In the Middle” and “Wait for Me Tomorrow” were recorded during the The Jaguar, The Raven, and the Snake sessions. “In the Middle” was the first song we ever recorded with keyboardist Leon Campos. Joel broke out a Bigsby and connected it to a vintage analog synthesizer. The device allowed Leon to bend the notes in the tune. The song also features legendary bassist Tony Maimone of the seminal Cleveland post-punk band Pere Ubu.
Nicole: Leon also appears on “Wait for Me Tomorrow,” which has a kind of Atlantic City boardwalk vibe, because Joel told him to play the keys as if he were in a Biz Markie circus.
Dwight: “Silver Rocket” and “Wasting All My Time” are the oldest recordings of the bunch. They were laid down in 2019 as a part of the Further sessions. We were never pleased with the mastering, as they were so compressed that the life was squeezed right out of them. Adam Ayan’s mastering brought these songs back from the dead. I always had faith in “Wasting All My Time,” which also features the acoustic guitar stylings of Sean Hayes of Brooklyn’s The National Reserve. Nicole wrote “Silver Rocket” and, in the studio, inspired by Thin Lizzy’s guitar, Joel pushed Ezra and me to finish out the rock ’n’ roll romp.
ABOUT DWIGHT + NICOLE:
Dwight + Nicole, based in Burlington, Vermont, traces its musical roots through the blues, soul, and R&B traditions by exploring the spaces between these genres, connecting them with themes found in dream pop and alternative rock. Dwight Ritscher’s warm, soulful tenor would be the envy of many bands, but it is Nicole Nelson’s four-octave vocal range that wowed a national audience during season three of NBC’s “The Voice.”
Dwight, the band’s principal songwriter and guitarist, first started performing live as a child with his grandfather, and it wasn’t long before players were sneaking him into blues clubs around Monmouth Park, New Jersey to man the tubs. Nicole, also a major songwriter for the band, plays bass, her first love was the musical theater, but she also explored musical expression through violin.
Dwight started his first bands while in college in Burlington, and, after graduation, he relocated to Boston to fulfill a recording contract for his band, Red Beans and Rice. He further developed his craft on stages throughout New England. Meanwhile, Nicole was being recognized as a standout jazz vocalist throughout Boston. Their paths crossed around town, and they discovered they shared an obsession with the soul and blues greats like the Staple Singers, Albert King, and Etta James. As a result, it wasn’t long before Ritscher and Nelson formed a duo.
Dwight + Nicole, the duo, began with Dwight on electric guitar and Nicole on tambourine, with both stomping their feet for the beat and singing in harmony. The couple later moved to Vermont, where they met and joined forces with powerhouse drummer Ezra Oklan and keyboard wizard Leon Campos, thus completing the band. They have toured throughout North America with Mavis Staples, Melissa Etheridge, and Norah Jones, among others, as well as performing as headliners.
The band’s live shows have become legendary, with fans expressing that they find comfort in the performances, and the band members’ chemistry has been described as intoxicating. Dwight + Nicole is the recipient of accolades and many awards over the past decade. The band and its members have been named “Band of the Year,” “Vocalist of the Year,” “Best Blues/R&B Band,” “Female Vocalist of the Year,” “Blues Act of the Year” at the Boston Music Awards and also won “Video of the Year” at the Independent Music Awards, as well as earning Daysies Awards from the Burlington, Vermont weekly paper, Seven Days.
With numerous releases in prior years under their belts, Dwight + Nicole released The Jaguar, The Raven, and The Snake in 2024, featuring the single, “Saying Goodbye.” Produced by acclaimed producer Joel Hamilton and recorded at his Studio G in Brooklyn and Ocean Sound in Giske, Norway through 2022, the album features musical guests the Daptone Horns and Arkai Strings, among others. The band rejoined Hamilton in Studio G in January 2025 to record a new album, Day or Night, which will see release on March 20, 2026.
