Vinyl Williams – Teal Palm // Song Of The Day #420 [Best Fit Premiere]

It’s become fashionable to praise records by saying, “Well, they’re basically just really good pop songs,” as if ‘pop’ has become a genre so big that it encompasses everything with a vaguely familiar song structure. It’s an irritating habit – but it is one that seems frustratingly apt for Vinyl Williams.

‘Teal Palm’, taken from the LA artist’s forthcoming Ultimate World EP, is deceptively simple four-chord pop, played through a kaleidoscopic filter of Can-esque kraut and Secret Machines-esque post-rock, constantly modulated with bits of Luke Abbott-indebted pastoral electronica. The press release plays up the ecclesiastical roots of Williams’ work, but there are no pseudo-religious histrionics here. Instead ‘Teal Palm’ feels intensely claustrophobic, the song buried under thick layers of clipping guitars, somehow existing despite the instrumentation, rather than because of it.

Ultimate World is out April 9 on Warmest Chord.