Album Review : Bathcrones - Psychorama
- Written by Jim Merrett
I was just thinking I’ve not been smacked around the head with an arsenal of dusty vintage synths and recording equipment for a while and then it happens twice in as many months. First Emeralds’ out-there Does It Look Like I’m Here? blew my brainbox right out, which unfortunately leaves little for Matthew Jackson Johnson (Bathcrones to you and me) to work with. And while it’s not quite up there with the Emeralds effort (hey – if you’ve heard it you’ll be thinking what is?), it packs enough of a punch to leave you feeling woozy.
That this was forged not in a cabin perched above Scandinavian fjords – or even in a scruffy but well-located bedsit in Brooklyn – but in Atlanta, Georgia, US, is miracle enough. Probably Bathcrones’ track ‘False Teeth’ was picked up by a bunch of blogs because it’s calypso meanderings slot neatly into that chillwave bracket, but more hopeful is the thought that this could’ve been made at any point in time and space since the early 1970s in Cologne. That it shines now is our boon.
Indeed, Psychorama could be a lost Cocteau Twins offering, produced after the band have been rebuilt by that scary supercomputer in Superman III, only not nearly that sinister. Or sun-drunk electronic shoegazing that’s not a billion miles from the planet the Chemical Brothers are currently orbiting (but not that slick).
From its entrance, this album borrows the build ‘em up/tear ‘em down template of pilled-up house, but by keeping things low-key, it never scales the heights it could, and therefore never drops you down flipped over the pit of your own stomach like you want it to. Like ‘Damselfly’, which is a room full of wind chimes seconds before an earthquake hits. Only rather than an earthquake, an ornate Japanese garden springs up through the floorboards. Nice, but vaguely disappointing.
And ‘My Love, Wilma’ (sadly nothing to do with The Flintstones), which goes for In Sides-era Orbital but with none of the oomph. Drift-along number ‘Rest Easy’ sums things up, sounding as it does like an inorganic reworking of anything Beach House have put out. It’s gently mesmerising but never grabs you like it threatens to. Let down by what this promises to be, this hazy summer brew does at least suggest there’s a bright future for its maker.