Amelia Murray, the 24-year-old Auckland musician who records as Fazerdaze, is the latest signee to Flying Nun Records. On her debut LP, Morningside, it’s instantly clear that she is not beholden to the label’s signature style of Velvets-indebted guitar pop known as the “Dunedin sound.” Her potent indie pop of goes for a feeling of clarity instead.
Murray draws from a relatively limited pallet—guitars, drums, the occasional keyboard line—but Morningside is notably more confident than anything on her debut EP from three years ago. She moves through styles gracefully, from straight-ahead fuzz guitar riffs to more subdued collages of sound. Opener “Last to Sleep” begins with just Murray’s airy vocals and steady strums; the song steadily grows, adding in shuffling percussion and synth beeps as it zips by. The chipper lead single “Lucky Girl” amps up, layer by layer, from its acoustic intro to a sticky chorus (“I know I’m a lucky girl”), as if Murray is repeating the sentiment to make herself believe it. Closer “Bedroom Talks” would feel at home on the next Orchid Tapes compilation with its bubble-pop electronic drums, cricket chirps, and Murray’s sweet vocals dripping in reverb. It is a web of a song that sounds made to be played at dusk.
Behind all the bright melodies and earworms, Murray is frequently writing about worry. Low-level relationship anxiety is ingrained in the makeup of practically every song. “And I’m trying not to try so hard for you,” Murray sings over the melancholy of “Shoulders,” a song that builds several times over its brief three minutes and refuses ever let go of its tension. Murray may at times be a little too reliant on reverb as a default texture, evoking the nostalgic warmth of a summertime day. But she knows when to crank up the distortion for a good yelp of catharsis, as on “Misread” or the especially explosive “Friends.”
Morningside is what happens when a bedroom pop record gets too big for just a single room, but all the while never loses its intimacy. Whatever the destination, it’s unlikely Murrary is concerned. She sounds concentrated on the one thing every great Flying Nun band aims for: making effortless pop songs that are far less effortless than people think.
