JONNY
Intertwining the musical DNA of two of Britain’s most gifted songwriters, Jonny’s debut album proclaims the advent of an irresistibly infectious new strain of psychedelic pop. With their respective bands Teenage Fanclub and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Norman Blake and Euros Childs were prime movers in (to pick a couple of obvious highlights from their extensively illustrious back catalogues) Bandwagonesque and Barafundle-two of the best albums of the last twenty years. Now, they’ve pooled their resources to create a record bursting with exactly the kind of instantly memorable melodies their admirers have come to expect, but translated into a fresh and vibrant new setting.
Opening in the enchanted landscape of “Wich Is Wich” (“At the cauldron, she’s got it going on”), it moves through the nuggety pop-psych of “Goldmine” and the vintage Blakeian (in both senses) romance of “Circling the Sun” to the full-scale, stone-age freak-out of “Cave Dance” (“You wear your hair long in the ancient style”). Everyone knew Jonny’d b(e) good(e), but this album is everything you’d hope for from a collaboration between the still fresh-faced godfather of the British acid-folk revival (Childs) and the man whose undoubted mastery of melodious sludge-rock once kept Kurt Cobain on his Converse-clad toes (Blake).
Recorded in just ten days at Paul Savage’s Chem 19 studio outside of Glasgow, with Teenage Fanclub’s Dave McGowan and ex-BMX Bandit Stuart Kidd helping out on bass and drums, respectively, Jonny finds the perfect balance between Childs’ whimsical wit and Blake’s seriously exquisite harmonies.
