Cut and paste psych pop
8/10
If you like all or some of the following artists you might like The Ruby Suns’ Sea Lion: Caribou, Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink, The Go! Team, Avalanches, Deserter’s Songs-era Mercury Rev, Yeasayer, El Guincho, Flaming Lips or Grizzly Bear. Made by a Californian (Ryan McPhun) relocated to New Zealand, The Ruby Suns marry sunny psych pop with world music influences and cut and paste mish-mashery.
Sea Lion is a heady brew that is by turns winsome and exotic in the mold of the Avalanches - all tropicalia, mariachi and tribal rhythms - and trippily volatile like Animal Collective. Both sonically intense and infectiously poppy, Sea Lion is brimming over with field recordings and sun-drenched harmonies. Rather than seeming opportunistic, the pan-global found sound - often ear-boggling in its detail - is more than just special effects, but enhances an imaginative approach to songwriting. ‘Kenya Dig It?’ and ‘Morning Sun’, for instance, share the song-within-a-song dynamics of Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips and Grizzly Bear, adding a colourful splash of shoegaze for good measure. Recommended.
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1 Album Review: Panda Bear - Person Pitch // Sep 1, 2008 at 7:50 pm
[...] Thereafter, ‘Person Pitch’ doesn’t quite hit the same heights. ‘Good Girl’ and ‘Carrots’ merge together to form another lengthy opus, but there are too many ideas being too loosely held together. ‘Search for Delicious’ is another ethereal ambient piece with a cavernous, Cathedral-esque resonance but is not quite as striking as ‘I’m Not’. The closer ‘Ponytail’ is just a brief reprise of the detached, Beach Boys harmonies that informed most of ‘Person Pitch’ - a strange sickly brew indeed. If you like this, try aforementioned artists and albums, or The Ruby Suns ‘Sea Lion‘. [...]
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