After a strong of singles and EPs, 25-year-old British artist Jacob Allen’s debut LP is a lushly horizontal release mixes slow electronic beats, dreamy, woozy, soulful vocals, and soft electric guitar reverbs. Shimmeringly delicate opener Sweet Dreams is love-lorn but horizontal. Lead single Velvet Leaves has a very slow-motion Jeff Buckley influence, and behind the soft sheen of revert drench, embracing the dark as much as the light, there is an anxiety, recalling a past incident that still leaves him near-panic attacks. Snowflower is a crackly distortion of off-beats, harp and ghostly vocal. Already Falling is among the most minimal, and here Puma’s voice is like a breathy Chet Baker. Sheets one of the albums most intimate, uses a sample from the score of Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for a love song “like a really personal note that you’d leave in the house to be found when you’ve got to head out early.” Overall, a pedestrian-paced debut that is anything but pedestrian, instead highly original, otherworldly and like the sound of a lazy, slow-motion nervous breakdown where soul meets jazz and trip-hop. Out on Blue Flowers Music.
Feel free to also check out our favourite albums of 2020 here:
Fiona Apple to Lianne La Havas to Yves Tumor: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 1
Agnes Obel to Bob Dylan, Phoebe Bridgers to Sault: favourite albums of 2020 – Part 2
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Feel free to recommend more new albums and comment below. You can also use the contact page, or find more on social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube, and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: