When Porcelain Raft’s first singles started circulating in 2010, Mauro Remiddi distinguished himself from the glut of similarly wavy electro-pop acts on numerous levels; for one thing, “Tip of Your Tongue” and "Dragonfly" stood out for their craft as opposed to being mere coneyances of vibe. You could also sense that he was a veteran songwriter and you’d be correct. While many of his peers were young men trying to cultivate mystery through anonymity, Remiddi was in his mid-30s and became more interesting with every revelation about his actual life experiences. A number of short-lived and far-flung musical projects took him around the globe and the Italian-born, London-based Remiddi created songs that were equally implaceable: they had shades of Swedish indie, UK bedsit and American lap-pop, and blurred the distinction between a guitar-toting singer/songwriter and a synth-pop artist. The inability to define Porcelain Raft contributed to the initial intrigue, but with his second LP in two years, Remiddi has cemented his sound; Permanent Signal is more or less more of the same, a mutual fatigue passed on from Porcelain Raft to the listener.
As Josh Love noted in our review of Porcelain Raft's 2012 debut Strange Weekend, Remiddi had a vocal connection-- if not a spiritual one-- with glam-rock space cadets of the past without overtly getting into interstellar role playing. Maybe we can chalk it up to the obligations that come with making a debut album and having to tour the thing, but Permanent Signal is more earthbound, Remiddi coming back down to terra firma but still communicating like a man slightly out of orbit. Members of the Antlers and Yuck contribute in ways that you can’t immediately spot without the credits, but you sense their presence in Permanent Signal’s overall demeanor, a sort of mundane, window-staring melancholy, even if highlight "The Way Out" was inspired by the incapacitating effect of Hurricane Sandy in his new home of Brooklyn.
Remiddi's abstract lyrics are shot through with a longing that never devolves into outright despair-- “If I think about it/ Just don’t get me started,” is the first line on the record and indicative of how candid, direct conversation is something that’s just out of reach. It makes Permanent Signal effective mood music, in that it sounds heartbroken or at least wistfully romantic, and Remiddi's own feelings never trample upon yours.
Consider opener “Think of the Ocean” as guidance for a means of surveying the record: it’s blue, moves in regular, steady tides and difficult to portion out into distinct territories. Hooks slowly reveal themselves, but are almost always instrumental and often referential. “Cluster” employs a classic Cure trick, using descending guitar lines to make a major key melody draw tears like a minor one. Likewise, “I Lost Connection” is the musical and lyrical centerpiece of Permanent Signal, conveying its emotion not so much through his words but rather the slow rollout of major 7th piano chords, beautifully bright, wispy and touched with a dissonance that makes them sound sad anyway.
In one of the fleeting moments of pleasure, Remiddi breathes “This feeling is taking over/ The sky is made of blue," evocative, sweet nothings underscored by deep piano chords suggesting a house anthem about to break out. Instead, a steady kick drum pulses and eventually fades, a climax denied-- the name of the song, naturally enough, is “Minor Pleasure". Conversely, “The Way Out” and “It Ain’t Over” interrupt the liminal, waking dream spell with distorted, rumbling breakbeats. They aren’t distractions, but all the same, what are you supposed to make of an album operating under the auspices of pop that needs drum machines to provide the hooks?
At the very least, Permanent Signal proves Remiddi is still distinguishing himself from the long-forgotten also-rans that clogged many an MP3 blog three years back. Whereas most of them couldn’t transition from singles to albums at all, let alone cohesive ones, Porcelain Raft has become too adept at making cohesive, whole statements. Even if Strange Weekend achieved a similarly unified sound, if obvious singles didn’t stand out, key phrases did. And they've taken on a prophetic resonance, "Put Me to Sleep" being the least of them. Previously, Remiddi doubted the worth of conversation “Unless You Speak From Your Heart,"whereas “Think of the Ocean” finds him apologetically asking “If I could take off this mask/ Will you laugh at me?,” a concise epigram for a record whose consistency feels tentative rather than confident. Or, you could think of “Shapeless & Gone”, descriptive of the beatific state of Porcelain Raft’s earliest work and at the same time, an unintentional criticism of Permanent Signal’s lack of definition and presence.
