Vinny Cafiso could've had a lucrative career as a crime boss on the strength of his name alone. He opted into music instead, currently playing in dream-pop act Joy Zipper with long-term S.O. Tabitha Tindale. The duo's sophomore album, American Whip, has been out in England since last year, accumulating predictable comparisons to Brian Wilson, My Bloody Valentine (a given-- Kevin Shields helped mix a few tracks, and his big neon fingerprints are all over it), and Air.
These takes are understandable: This particular strain of dreamy shoegaze is pure surface and form, and trying to write about it can be like trying to review a cloud: Does it look like an ice-cream cone or a mermaid? Does it matter? There's barely time to name its shape before the wind changes it again, and no matter what it looks like, it's only eddying mist.
American Whip is engaging and sharply-drawn-- a spun-sugar confection of pale pinks and lemony yellows, oversaturated harmonies and gently whirring guitars, layers of liquid drone, the saccharine punch of outsized strings and horns.
On "Christmas Song", humming organ sunrises backlight translucent clouds of guitar, slashed with deep auburn wounds by the huge, breathy harmonies. "33x" finds Tindale doing her cute robot number over mournful slides and drenched chamber strings, and "Out of the Sun" is a kicky little psych-pop smokeout with a deliriously stacked vocal chorus. If American Whip makes you viscerally confront your mortality, you're probably looking too closely, like peering at a Monet from inches away when just standing back to enjoy the tableau is the more appropriate response.
