Birds chirp through a tape-hiss breeze atop a bed of airy pads, and a cleareyed, forlorn guitar springs forth: this is the beginning of the debut album from Sans Merit, a new rock project from Griffin James, otherwise known as Francis Inferno Orchestra. For over a decade, the Melbourne-raised—and now L.A.-based—producer has been indulging his indie and alt interests, and this fuzzed-out bedroom janglepop and shoegaze LP, Early Grave, is his first extensive deliverance. The album represents a gestalt of sorts: years of approaching different genres and songwriting styles, and producing not “in the box,” with soft synths and samples, but with live instruments (and sometimes a band), has led to this focused and succinct thirteen-track musical journey. In pursuit of a pure and low-key aesthetic, James recorded demos on phones and chose to rely heavily on budget instruments, clapped-out synths, and crappy amps, and would often cut tapes live in bedrooms, lay down vocal takes in closets and put microphones to broken speakers, all in part of the quest of using limited resources to create a truthful body of work. The finishing touch is a thick coating of nostalgia ooze; soundbites from internet clips flitter throughout the record, and goofy sound effects flicker above like dying incandescent bulbs. A dream-pop album for our times: its lyrics are off-kilter romantic musings, sarcastic self-loathing mumbles, reflections on the unrealness of real life.

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