SHIELDS, ESA - OVUM CAPER (LP)

"Hauntologically pop, fragile and with a twisted psychedelic Beach Boys side, this album shows an undeniable songwriting craft. Esa Shield's androgynous voice together with the use of guitars, keys and analogue electronics tends to weave "wrong" notes and submarine harmonies into songs that range from psych-folk ("Shelley Duvall") to dark ambient ("Jenkins Other") and super catchy space-age pop ("Monde Capricorn"). Now and then a nostalgic and contradictory bout of fever unexpectedly appears along the faded innocence of his music. Sometimes the words seem distant, as if heard through a dichroic looking glass. Ovum Caper is a trip through a dreamlike hallucinatory soundworld, which floats indefinitely "following the white baloonfish downstream", where "at night, all strawberry fields look blue." (label info)