Missed The 50: Gayngs

Missed The 50
Gayngs
‘Relayted’
(Secretly Canadian)

The Fly’s Top 50 records of the year obviously contained some splendid albums from the last year, but one staggering omission has inflamed my ire like… well… you know how ire looks when it’s inflamed. It’s bloody disgusting. Some of my personal picks made it into the hallowed gallery (Ariel Pink, Avi Buffalo… actually, that’s it), but this record didn’t even sneak into the lower echelons. Retro-futurism, lackadaisical lounge funk and the creamiest, mellowest soul sound you’ve heard in years, this doesn’t sound like one of the records of the year on paper, but by crikey, the listening experience couldn’t be more different. This record, ignorant/deaf Fly contributors (joking!), is Gayngs’ ‘Relayted’.

Certain artists are more famous for their biographies than their music and, when ‘Relayted’ emerged at the beginning of the year, it may well have gone that way for Gayngs. Thanks to a line-up that features members of Bon Iver, P.O.S., Solid Gold and Megafaun, the term ‘super-group’ was also bandied around rather too much. As it turned out, the record sounded nothing like any of the bands that the 23 (yep, 23) members had previously played with, the product of an amorphous collective helmed by producer Ryan Olson and a penchant for 10cc. So enamoured was he by the Manchester four-piece, in fact, that one of the centrepiece tracks is a cover of Godley and Creme’s ‘Cry’, recorded by the band in 1975.

Mere evocations of past soft-rock pioneers are not the gimmick some might believe – there’s a crawling menace throughout ‘Relayted’ that transcends trivial atmospherics. The tempo remains constant throughout (apparently it’s a nicely-judged 69 BPM), so that the overriding feeling is one of gentle evolution, a meander through various states of despondent lovesickness and general bad-assery. Gunshot sound effects on ‘The Walker’, a mushy jazz meltdown on ‘False Bottom’ and some simply incredible falsetto on the concluding ‘The Last Prom On Earth’ are just three examples of how said menace is balanced. Truly, this is album has been masterminded rather than simply thought about, and it’s all the better for its near-maniacal attention to detail.

When it’s closing, with only a synth motif and a slight, wispy sax solo to lull you back into real life, it’s difficult to recall a cleverer album that manages to cram in so much emotional exertion. Gloopy and retro it might well be, but there’s real compositional flair at work too. You won’t even remember which Canadian indie superstars are supposed to be in it.

So if you haven’t given it a listen, you horrible, misguided, rotting box of flapjacks (joking again!), then you really should. Oh, and Prince turned up at their debut show. YES, PRINCE!