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A Sunny Day In Glasgow Sea When Absent Lefse Records

08.08.14

It’s difficult to describe A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s sound without making some hackneyed reference to shoegaze, which of course invariably summons hazy visions of the early 90s. Yet considering the band’s tumultuous personal circumstances, their fourth album is one that could only exist in the 21st century.

The six group members now reside across two continents and thousands of miles, from New York and Philadelphia to Sydney, with usual bandleader Ben Daniels having to remove himself from day-to-day recording duties owing to the fact he was living in Oz. Perhaps by way of compensation, for the first time the sextet have a bona fide producer at the helm in Jeff Zeigler (The War on Drugs, Kurt Vile). Zeigler has shaped the album’s disjointed, transcontinental recording process to his advantage, expertly guiding fragmented soundscapes in and out of focus. Often it sounds as though The Avalanches have finally made a new album by sampling nothing but My Bloody Valentine and M83 songs.

The duelling vocals of Jen Goma and Annie Freidrickson have been brought right to the fore, floating above the dreamlike reverie of songs like Never Nothing (It’s Alright [It’s Okay]) and In Love with Useless (The Timeless Geometry in the Tradition of Passing). Elsewhere things are altogether more aggressive, dissonant, even. Be warned, while they sound sugary on the surface, ASDIG are still a complex and challenging listen. They’re also an incredibly rewarding one.