Many aspiring indie musicians take the home-recorded path for lack of a better option; singer/songwriter Mauro Remiddi, who's spent the past year and change recording spectral indie pop as Porcelain Raft, revealed to P4Ker Ryan Dombal in last year's Rising profile that, for him, that path is a preferred aesthetic. The 37-year old London-via-Italy transplant previously did time in the little-known indie pop outfit Sunny Day Sets Fire, so he knows his way around a recording studio-- experience that, ironically, makes the tape-hissed tack more desirable for him. In his previous career in a full-band setting, he outlined: "I started to make demos to show them, but then I suddenly realized that I liked the demos more than the final recordings... I like the idea of a work in progress."
The songs of Porcelain Raft sound far from incomplete, though; instead, on the project's proper debut EP, Gone Blind, they sound full-bodied and substantial. Composed of mastered material from Porcelain Raft's well of self-released 2010 EPs, this four-track (six on the digital version) record in advance of Remiddi's forthcoming full-length is a brief glimpse of his distanced compositional talents and stylistic breadth. Last year's gorgeously dew-dropped single "Tip of Your Tongue" owed debts to Swedish indie pop, strengthened here by the buzzing, Radio Dept.-reminiscent "I Found a Way". Mostly, though, Gone Blind elaborates on Remiddi's surprisingly close vocal resemblance to John Lennon; at times, the similarity in his inflection on certain syllables and held notes is uncanny. The comparison holds melodic water as well; you can hear remnants of Plastic Ono Band's ramble-rock moments in the haunted, bent-string jangle of the title track, while a peer within the beatific light of Remiddi's best song to date, "Dragonfly", reveals a positively gooey melody that works in the vein of Lennon's more sentimental, heart-tugging moments. The latter benefits most from the otherwise hard-to-notice remastering job that was done on these tracks, as Remiddi gently delivers a farewell kiss-off while surrounded by miles-wide guitar and shook percussion: "Whatever you were looking for/ It's not here anymore."
Gone Blind's closing track, "Talk to Me", is another beast entirely, as broken beats and clattering drone-noise shatter around Remiddi's snapped whispers of the titular phrase. It's a dark departure from the other songs' comparatively optimistic glow, and it's tempting to read the track's placement as indicative of what the future holds for Porcelain Raft. Unfortunately, there's no such future context to be found considering Gone Blind doesn't serve much purpose for folks who have spent the past year with these songs. For newcomers, though, it serves as a good starting point to Remiddi's growing catalog; the rest of us, it seems, will have to wait for his next move. Lucky for us, this stuff has staying power.
