GUM - Flash In The Pan

Flash In The Pan is the third studio album by Australian multi-instrumentalist GUM, released in November 2016 via Spinning Top Records.

Jay Watson is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. He is best known as a member of the psychedelic rock bands Tame Impala and Pond. Watson also records solo material under the name GUM.

Such is the warm massage of synths that smothers Flash In The Pan that it can take a few listens to grasp the finer points of Jay Watson’s music. Because finer points there are: Flash In The Pan exhibits unprecedented songwriting ambition and moves with an attractive tumbling, tangential momentum. Watson can be abrasive on one hand, such as with “Deep Razz”, as well as woozily hypnotic on mood pieces like “Ophelia”.

“Gemini” reflects Watson’s duality of sounds, flipping between echoey softness and punchy immediacy. It sets the tone well for the rest of the album, exciting, yet restrained in its more outgoing moments. It’s comfortably slow, often fading in and out, betraying the sense of urgency the album title might suggest.

On the more upbeat tracks, like “Deep Razz”, psychedelic motifs like a reversed guitar are blended with muffled autotuned verses. “Ophelia”, with its booming keyboard riff, somehow sounds nostalgic and incredibly melancholy at once, making it one of the more distinctive and moving tracks on what can be at times, a slow, uneventful album.

Flash In The Pan shows the unfiltered, unforced and deeply authentic side to GUM. Its twin strengths of full-bodied production and incisive melody are fully emphasized, and on these counts he hits the spot.

This LP is pressed in Australia on black vinyl with a printed inner sleeve.