Double Exposure [LP]

Penny Arcade - Double Exposure [LP]

LP version. Double Exposure isn't a departure, necessarily, but this new album contains some of the rawest and most deconstructed sounds that James Hoare -- of Veronica Falls, Ultimate Painting and Proper Ornaments -- has recorded to date. Principally, and for the first time, the guitars take a back seat. It's not a "no guitar" concept album by any means; it's mostly just the way it came together. It would also be inaccurate to suggest the guitars have been banished altogether, especially after the dual six-string solo that rips through the speakers on the mighty album opener Regrets. Following 2024's gorgeous Backwater Collage debut LP under the Penny Arcade nom de plume, this is a hallucinogenic experience, and the backbone of Double Exposure is the drum machine that informed the songs. It's also an album of sweet duality. The album features flashes of guest appearances, but for the vast majority it is an album of solo experimentalism, with gestations that bubble to life across the stereo before fading back out again. The drum machines take center stage, playing out like In Rainbows-era Radiohead channeled through Silver Apples, a trip in three minutes that you can play on an infinite loop. Like so much of the album, it was recorded almost instantaneously, with a simplicity and rawness that heavy overdubs and meticulous arrangements could never achieve. It is an album high on vibe. Clicking drum machines and oozing organs interplay with different hues of guitar work, from the ragas of the George Harrison-esque "Early Morning" to the tripped-out, smoke-drenched "We Used to Be Good Friends." Double Exposure is an unfussy collection of songs. The album harks somewhere between the restless experimentation of Syd Barrett and the uninhibited analogue innovations of Tim Presley as White Fence. It very much is what it is. 01. Regrets 02. Memory Lane 03. Worst Trip 04. You've got the key 05. Everything's easy 06. Early Morning 07. Rear view mirror 08. Time 09. instrumental No.1 10. We used to be good friends 11. Mercy 12. Riverside Drive