Bleep

After a long absence (not without a string of mysterious one-offs on Night Slugs) Jack Latham aka Jam City returns with his first full-length LP in five years. The sadboy synth anguish of 2015’s Dream A Garden is still alive and kicking, but Pillowland bestows upon Latham’s uniquely irreverent style a late-night drive time radio slot; a one-album set of super-powered hyperpop wavelengths easily imagined as pumping through an old car stereo, the battered 1980s transmitter stuck between grizzled classic rock, funky quiet storm and stray city pop oldies — and more than a few static screeches in-between.

Very much in due appreciation of dadrock's best and brightest, the opening title track opens with a slow-motion synth swagger and an unapologetically soaring guitar riff, which draws to an industrial halt with the rhythm of ‘Sweetjoy’, one of Pillowland’s many earworm songs carried by Latham’s popping metallic autotuned vocal — another instrument among many within the thick, maximalist haze. There’s a hint of French synthwave throughout the likes of ‘Cruel Joke’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Dream About It Anymore’, their sparking electronics rubbing up against the clatter of reverb-drenched live drums.

Jam City nimbly dodges any single genre with Pillowland, opting for a crushingly catchy LP steeped in neon-coloured crepuscular atmospherics.