Brighton's Jamie Broughton flowers with exuberant sunshine-psych on this latest brace of releases.
Words: Elvis Thirlwell
Teasing forthcoming self-produced debut album 'Big Long Sun,' releasing later this via MIOHMI records (the label founded by Yumi and the Weather), the latest brace of cuts from Brighton-based Jamie Broughton are at once breezy, levitating psych-pop gems, and eerie, uncanny visitations.
Channeling neo-psych flag bearers Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Melody's Echo Chamber, both cuts here are succinct, dazzling, and meticulously arranged; freaked a little on the edges by a surreal, oblique vocal, an unsettling sonic texture, and seamless shifts in mood from wide-eyed, melodic delight, to dimension-titling weirdness. 'the Sound' flits from nervous, tight-stringed verses before yanking the curtains wide into euphoric, sun-smooched panoramas; 'dangling down''s chintzy pianos canter prettily like something from Beck's Colours before a dissonant trumpet sound harps in - a puckish guest keeping the listeners guessing.
Perfect side-orders for a misfit's summer, both tracks undoubtedly bear that instant gratification of cracking a canned drink mid-afternoon and sending the first rushes of carbonated soda down your parched gullet, bubbling-up your sun-beaten bones with the freshest zest of life… Find some dappled shade, let the grass cool your back, and let these tunes flow through your ears and lodge in your brain.
