I’ve got this farfetched theory that if you wanted to know what was going inside John Lennon’s drug-riddled brain circa 1967 you would just have to listen to one-man show Porcelain Raft’s debut EP Gone Blind. Maybe it’s just his vocals though. There’s an edge of classism lost in a swirling, ether-soaked daze. Gentle reverb and floating loop melodies give his music a chill wave-esque ambiance that blends nicely on a playlist with other dream pop breakouts of this year such as Youth Lagoon and Oupa. The EP glides from song to song, transporting you through the numbing confusion of an over-populated city to a barren landscape. It’s expansive and makes use of its space really nicely with glitchy electronic beats that shimmer amongst a slew of unconventional instrumentation. At times his music is futuristically epic, like a post-apocalyptic society run by glimmering robots. Sometimes it borders scary; the kind of stuff I would honestly only listen to if I was bored and wanted to pretend I lived in psych-thriller fantasy world (the kind where the only person who comes out alive in the end is Tom Cruise or some guy and his dog). Or if I was in dire need of an adrenaline rush. To put it simply, his music is straight weird most of the time. However, once you shove the weirdness aside, there’s a vulnerability at it’s core that makes it difficult to write off even the really strange songs. But the catchy songs are pretty catchy. I’ve linked the noteworthy jams below.
