Penny Arcade
Double Exposure
Tapete Records
Dimly lit, slow-moving Double Exposure has no intention of turning up the lights. In the midnight hour, Penny Arcade retires to more intimate spaces, where darkness encroaches and James Hoare, also a member of Proper Ornaments, Veronica Falls, and Ultimate Painting, makes sonic slurries of titian organ ooze and varied guitar flurries, while typing out drum machine codes of soft clacking and airy puffs. The noir-ish atmospheres are ripe for brooding introspection.
Slinking into the shadows but never leaving for good, Hoare’s six-string forays are often well-defined, deep with sliding, baritone richness in a waxing and waning “Time” and splashing bluesy streaks over the soft psychedelia of “We Used to Be Good Friends,” which summons the ghost of Chris Whitley in a cloud of reverb, more of which permeates the warm, downy “Mercy.” Seemingly, the latter melts away in a melancholic reverie, unlike “Regrets,” a mid-tempo strummer evoking hazy memories of the Velvet Underground and Elliott Smith and killed off in thrilling fashion by fidgety, jabbing lead guitar wrenched into Nels Cline-inspired shapes and moving with the murderous grace of a skilled matador.
When turning trippy, as with the gently rolling “You’ve Got the Key,” Double Exposure – the title cleverly alluding to the photographic layering technique, aurally mirrored here with experimental subtlety – revisits early Pink Floyd, the Syd Barrett years. Although, the languid “Everything’s Easy” is playfully folky, too, and “Early Morning” is a brief interlude of faded English prog. Ambling along, “Memory Lane” and “Worst Trip” are deliciously languid, lazy strolls through the past, clear-eyed and unguarded.
Everything is coming into focus for a Penny Arcade project that continues to evolve.
