“ Comparisons, conjecture, obscured trains of thought, disappointments laid plain in a loose shrugged off way, we’re invited to make these links too. ”

The imprints of Nico and Velvet Underground as separate entities loom like cartoons of paw marks over ‘WiFi Kills Ghosts’; a single that could be a B-side, a B-side that beats the main track. Completely charming and entirely whimsical. Unhurried, unfussed and wonderfully absurd.

And pause for a moment to accept the proposal, there’s really no proof that he’s wrong. Maybe our mass of invisible signals really do steal the bandwidth of unearthly beings, with every sent selfie taking the space where there could have been calls from the dead. Maybe modems were banned for giving ET tinnitus… all I know is now I see neither. Point that I’m trying ungainly to make is that sometimes it’s good to plain entertain, and be entertained for the sake of it.

Christopher Pellnat understands this completely. What sounds like a throwaway easy-writ track is almost offensively lovingly made. Crafted with passions for 60’s folk pop; there’s jangling guitars, faint hints of organ, vibes that add their metallic tap-dance to notes that bounce abstract and giddy. Even the Mo-Tucker bass drum, soft in its off-lilting gentle thud-roll, seems to shift to its own sense of time. Everything’s loosely connected, no one part overpowers another, it’s tough not to sway to the picks and struck rhythms and the clarity of Pallnat’s high vocals.

Through this and a back catalogue of lost lo-fi sunshine pop, an Arthur Lee innocence plays out. Comparisons, conjecture, obscured trains of thought, disappointments laid plain in a loose shrugged off way, we’re invited to make these links too. And that hunt for connection’s persistent, as if everything must be joined somehow; the now and the past, the seen and unseen, the me and the you and the bigger, the string between myth and lost truth… So why not make myths of your own? These grandiose ideas, lucid themes and intentions could be bloated in less loving settings, but they’re saved by a touching sincerity. If they weren’t they’d be words in the wind. And damn it I think I’m sucked in.

So now a link has now been forged between Pellnat’s New York and my current UK residence. And as I catch myself drifting, ruminating and writing, I don’t mind the cost of the wavelengths it took to get this short sweet pleasure sent to me. As it seems that he’s more than prolific, I hope I won’t get ghosts no time soon.    

‘WiFi Kills Ghosts’ is available now to stream, buy and download from Bandcamp.