Connan Mockasin - Caramel

[alan nagsworth]

Oh yes. The masterful loverboy of bedroom psychedelia is back in full haze. Dreamier than a whole bag full of stolen dreams smooshing together all weird like, it's wonderful to know that Forever Dolphin Love wasn't a one-off return to making music because, according to an interview, his mother told him he should make more music, so he did.

I'm about halfway through this so far and it's gorgeous. The whole thing is so heavily drenched in flangers and shit, but it has such a distinct feel to it that isn't just weirdo psych-pop dribble with a bunch of cheap effects on it. Unlike the first record, which had more focus on straightforward attention-grabbing numbers here and there, this album delves even further into slow, ethereal pop bliss. It sounds extremely sexy, and this perfect promo photo looks like the whole record is performed from that perspective:



Falling asleep while Connan lies next to you, singing three vocal tracks at once as your head softly spins out into slumber. Bloody lovely. The man is fantastic.

He's also playing Rough Trade East tonight, if anyone is so arsed to go. I'll be there, come and see me!

I'm The Man, That Will Find You

[Serge]

He's also playing Rough Trade East tonight, if anyone is so arsed to go. I'll be there, come and see me!

I'll be keeping an eye on you, sonny.

[Crabwalk]

On first listen this appears a more than worthy follow up to one of the best albums of the last few years. He's incorporated some soft pop influences, as Ariel Pink did with 'Mature Themes', but added layers of haze and wooze that make the songs sound almost submerged. I'm going to be listening to this endlessly over the coming days. Let us know how it translates live Nags and Serge... 

[alan nagsworth]

I'll be keeping an eye on you, sonny.

I was nice to meet you! It WASN'T nice to hear you say you don't like Connan, though, even if you were wearing an excellent shirt. You think that's gonna win me over, do you?! Well!... well, it is kind of working... ahhh c'mere, you!

The show was bloody excellent in my opinion. He's such a lovely, charming little man. Great sense of humour and crowd participation, fantastic dress sense... couldn't fault the performance at all. They improvise a fair bit with their music too. The last song they did, they asked the crowd how fast they wanted it played at the end and dragged it right out, it was so much fun!

Still, no excuse for being a cloth-eared New Zealand bellend though, is it?



I SAID NAGS NOT MAX YOU FLIPPING ARSE

He's doing a full tour next January, I'm seeing him in London, everyone should come!

[Crabwalk]

It would be great to see you there, Max!

[alan nagsworth]

SHUT UP MAN

[Serge]

I was trying to figure out how the hell he'd managed to mishear 'Alan' as 'Max', and now all is clear. You're in good company - my colleague Kit has now been officially renamed Pip after a regular customer continually misheard his name and started calling him that.

[Squink]

So Alan Nagsworth's real name is Maximilian? Or maybe Maxine?

[alan nagsworth]

Only Fry knows my real name.

Actually that probably isn't true, a couple more of you do, but if you say a fucking word I'll cut your pretty little faces to ribbons.