A fine EP of atmospheric psych-pop inflected with jazz, soul and other styles, combining synths, propulsive drums and a variety of other instrumentation with gauzy vocals and wistful melodies.
Instrumentally and vocally taken almost to perfection
“It comes in circles, like turning seas pressed against the pull of planets.”
This is how Graham Jonson, aka quickly, quickly, kicked off his debut LP The Long and Short Of It released via Ghostly International in 2021. A quite brilliant work which put enough attention on the Portland-based producer, who is now back with the new EP titled Easy Listening. The six tracks are well-constructed and combine many musical elements. A fine EP of atmospheric psych-pop inflected with jazz, soul and other styles, combining synths, propulsive drums and a variety of other instrumentation with gauzy vocals and wistful melodies.
That artist’s basement is home to racks of synthesizers and an array of drum machines, guitars, bongos, xylophones and other noise boxes. One notable addition to the Easy Listening setup was the Teac reel-to-reel tape machine he found on eBay and hooked up to Ableton. “I used it frequently to add color/texture to the project by running individual instruments through and warping the tape with my finger. After I had finished all the songs, I ran the full mix of every song in a row through the tape to add one more layer of low-fidelity weirdness.”
For some, though, the production takes on the slightly jazzy, funky pop akin to Sea & Cake or Aluminum Brothers at their prime, might be the same thing as the dread definition of easy listening as musical wallpaper, but what Johnson brings us here is music that is actually engaging, instrumentally and vocally taken almost to perfection, interspersed with snippets of found sound or talk.
“This EP has probably been about a year and some change in the making,” Johnson explains. “I became obsessed with old weirdo soul and psychedelic music from the ’60s and ’70s and had planned on making a full album of my interpretation of that stuff. After making a ton of random songs in this vein, I realized that the only ones I really loved were the six that ended up on the EP.”
Easy Listening is available on Ghostly International. [Bandcamp]
