Forever Dolphin Love

It's Choade My Dear

Automatic

The deliciously off-kilter and wholly unique musical oeuvre of Connan Mockasin stands defiantly alone in the current musical landscape. Exploring the furthest flung horizons of pop music on his critically acclaimed album “Forever Dolphin Love”, the New Zealand born, current London resident synthesises the playful aural experimentation of pop mavericks past and present like Joe Meek, Brian Wilson and Ariel Pink but pushes the boat our even further, dissecting, inverting, and dissembling the very structures of the pop song itself, creating something endlessly inventive and completely beguiling, all at the same time.

This willingness to toy with the edges of musical convention is showcased to startling effect in “Faking Jazz Together”, its typically opaque title belying a gorgeous, leisurely amble through an enchanted forest of lush psychedelia, complete with dreamy guitar licks, liquefied salsa rhythms and Mockasin’s trademark alien vocals, sounding like a transmission from another cosmos, ghostly yet strangely affecting all at once. Tom Furse from The Horrors, meanwhile, extrapolates the beats from the original and relocates them in a wide-eyed, sprawling dub epic akin to Screamadelica-era Primal Scream, and renowned German producer (and Kompakt lynchpin) Michael Mayer builds a propulsive, tropical-flavoured anthem around Mockasin’s unusual vocals, with delightfully unpredictable results.

Even better, you can see Connan Mockasin in glorious live action this autumn, when he and his band embark on their own headline tour of the UK, playing dates across the country at the end of September. 

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Optimist High

Chris Cohen