Album Review: Season Sun by Gulp

While Gruff Rhys occupies himself hauling a stuffed historical figurine across the States, the debut album by Gulp suggests his Super Furry Animals bandmate Guto Pryce has settled for simpler domestic pleasures. Revolving around a core duo of Pryce and partner Lindsey Leven, Gulp distil SFA’s flashes of psychedelic sunshine into glistening droplets of rainbow-hued pastoral pop. Although Leven recites a fair number of hippie clichés (“Make some peace, everyone” implores ‘Seasoned Sun’), it’s her inventive use of an arsenal of rich, vintage synths that rescues ‘Season Sun’ from cloying sweetness.

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Head here to submit your own review of this album. What do you get when you put a Super Furry Animal with a sultry songstress? Well, if Season Sun is anything to go by, you get to go on a sonic-infused trip through sun-kissed landscapes via a collection of beautifully thought out songs. Gulp was formed by Super Furry Animals' bassist Guto Pryce and singer Lindsey Leven, and together they have created a unique sound that blends together an almost folk-inspired backdrop with fuzzed-up psychedelic bass guitars and synths.

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Season Sun is the woozy, sunlit debut LP from Gulp, a side project of Super Furry Animals bassist Guto Pryce and his wife Lindsey Leven. While taking cues from a variety of sources, Gulp seems to live most comfortably in that stylized warm/cool world of chittering guitars and vintage Farfisa organs that Stereolab pioneered throughout the '90s. There's a pleasing, gentle psychedelic patina to the album's ten songs over which Leven lends her airy, charismatic voice, which at times evokes Alison Goldfrapp's elegant purr and Vashti Bunyan's dulcet whisper.

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There seems to be a Nico revival going on this year. Bands like Haunted Hearts and, to an extent, Linda Perhacs all feature the ethereal psych-folk qualities that defined counterculture music in the 1960s. Gulp follows a similar line, and even the promotional photos on their website feature the same thousand-yard stare from being constantly high for the past nine hours and images projected on their faces from some Exploding Plastic Inevitable reel.

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What with Super Furry Animals being one of the most brilliantly consistent bands on the planet, every solo release is met with unfair anticipation and a smidge of dread. Since their debut, Fuzzy Logic, there's been a collective will for them to not fuck it up and, so far, they've pretty much managed it. There's been solo records and collaborative projects from just about every SFA member, with Gruff Rhys approaching bona fide national treasure status through his latest American Interior LP and the Neon Neon tagteam, while others have appeared on soundtracks, remixes and output of The Peth.

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