J. Francis
to adore

It might be true that some scenes today are like worlds from Katamari; yet, to create a decent ball and absorb ships, towers, and entire planets, you need a certain dexterity.

Julian Pearce from Brisbane doesn't have particular dexterity, rolling his ball in the fairy world of dreampop, but one can recognize a certain style in him. He starts with the very small and consumes those bad dogs of Wild Nothing, just to add mass; then he devours the DIIV whole and even a bit of War on Drugs; he becomes medium-sized and fairly large and collects from the more plastic Lush and Chapterhouse. The peak of his size is being able to snatch some folicular harmonizations from the usual My Bloody Valentine and building pieces like century on them, which at some point manifests an electric solo freakout like J Mascis, maybe to homage the alliteration of the moniker. He rolls among the arched keyboards of Disintegration and spreads them everywhere, cloying, reaching new heights of magnetism (read derivativeness, which is anyway the yellow machine of the Italian vocabulary, and every time someone says derivative and its derivations, violence must be used against them, as we know).

Not bad insights, like the almost jangle guitar of shadows - since pilfering from Ask, the best friend of Italian club DJs, is a common exercise - and even suggestive moments like blur me out, which is a drumless cross between Plainsong, Pictures of You, and Touched, that piece from Loveless that falls into the very rare category of useful and beautiful skits. All with an artificially angelic male voice, duplicated and triplicated, layered in harmonizations, practically feminine.

New intuitions and contaminations are urgently needed, new Grimes, lots of Grouper, new melodic and rhythmic ideas, in the world of dreampop all ethereal whispers and cheesy keyboards. Otherwise, there's a risk that everything really becomes all winking and Me and My Katamari, rolling and growing balls - both those of the artists and those of the listeners - in a pre-programmed world. J. Francis comes out well anyway: he makes very tranquil music and with decent technical means and use of forces, he even shares it for free or at any price you choose on bandcamp, and he is so peripheral (=undervalued) that one really can't complain. Some should take an example.