"How patient are you?" It's not a very encouraging question when talking pop records, let alone a bedroom-psych pop record from the mind of a guy going for his Master's in ethnomusicology. But those of us who still consider patience to be a virtue will find that Julian Lynch's debut full-length Orange You Glad is full of great little moments that gradually (and successfully) cultivate songs brimming with hushed wonder. What really saves these four-track recordings from relying too heavily on aimless atmospherics is a profound interest in late-1960s psychedelia-- I'm guessing that spending most of your time writing lengthy papers about native Tunisian music is either going to heavily influence the record you are making, or drive you deep into the garage, back to a stack of Love LPs.
Most of us already familiar with Lynch probably are so as a result of his work with the Underwater Peoples label and their associates (he frequently plays in and with Ducktails, his "Banana Jam Pt. 1" was a highlight on this summer's Underwater Peoples Records Showcase sampler). But Lynch might soon have a niche all of his own thanks to the various improvisations on Orange, all anchored by uniformed suites of airy electronics, slow-burn rhythms, and his garbled coos and whines. Even the most patient (i.e., stoned) listener probably wouldn't come back for seconds if this was all there was to absorb, but Lynch interjects these weird little set pieces on almost every song-- that crazy low-budget Jimi Hendrix lick on opener "Venom", that quirky-cool bird-call synth blip on the too-short highlight "Rancher"-- that gives these pieces real character on an album that could have could have lazily revisited the same tones and ideas in an effort to over-establish "feel".
"Winterer One" nicely encapsulates a lot of the stronger points on Orange. "I saw witchcraft tonight," sings Lynch (it's one of the few discernable lyrics on the whole album, but one helpfully indicative of the moods explored here) over muffled tambourines and a bleary acoustic guitar line that gorgeously melts into a set of buttery-soft synth tones. It's a quiet victory with the ethereal sadness of a Nebraska cut, oddly welcoming and calming. "Mercury" would be a big time throw-away if it weren't for Lynch's elusive clarinet carrying the whole thing, weaving in and out of those aquatic guitar textures like a fish through an anemone. And the fractured psych of "Andaza", it's violent wah-wah pedals screaming in the face of melancholic ho-hummery all make for wonderfully contrasted pop pieces that make the patience so virtuous.
Of course there is the obligatory 11-minute droner "The Flood" smack dab in the middle of the thing, a tedious rumination that plays like a very drugged-out seance for a snake charmer, only not a pinch as awesome as that might sound. You can't help but feel a little exhausted after it, leaving "Winterer Two" to stand as an unnecessary epilogue and rendering the syrupy far-outness of "Seed" a little bland. Moments like these curry some favor with those worried that Orange might not be much more than a welcome addition to your "Sleep" playlist, but that application seems somewhat backwards with such wide-eyed intrigue being so delicately stoked time and again. So if you do doze off with such brightly inviting ideas and sounds this hard at work, consider your REM cycle pleasantly soundtracked.
