Porcelain Raft – Gone Blind EP

Italian Marco Remiddi creates a synthier, poppier, altogether happier style of computer composed songs as Porcelain Raft. Perhaps overshadowed in 2010 by Perfume Genius, who made a similar style of bedroom lo-fi that appeared from nowhere, becoming the surprise find of last summer, Gone Blind is a collection of dream pop ballads, performed solo looping guitar, keyboards, vocals and synths.

Porcelain Raft - Gone Blind EP

Living in London and previously in a band called Sunny Day Sets Fire, Remiddi only began recording as Porcelain Raft in 2010, and yet despite amassing a handful of EPs, under his current artistic guise he remains a compelling mystery, as ominous and ethereal as his recording moniker may imply.

There is a cloud of delicacy and blurring in this work – you can’t quite see or hear all that is going on but it remains beautiful for this very reason. The release of the EP on Acephale Records exposes a stream of pure dream-pop, pink tinged and smoky. The lo-fi recording effort aides in making this feel like a lost gem, something that remains almost timeless, recalling the better synth pop of the ’80s and its current reimagining in the work of, say, Ariel Pink.

Additionally, Remiddi’s voice is as delicate as the soft layers and looping he conjures: ‘I Found a Way’ opens with a flurry of synths that sound like a blustery, whispering wind, while ‘Dragonfly’ is an apt name for a track that encapsulates a delicate beauty and sparse existence. Its opening lyrics give life to an otherwise invisible character; “no one said ’hello’ to the guy in the reception hall, how do you think he’s gonna feel today?”…”whatever you were looking for, it’s not here anymore”. These are everyday thoughts and observations, nothing profound, but not often thrown into a pop formula that is simplistic and yet, through this use of a mere few repetitious riffs, capable of being transformed into something compellingly memorable.

‘Tip of Your Tongue’ is a fine example of dream-pop/shoe-gaze meshings at their best. It’s almost a love song, and one that interestingly is found on the tip of your tongue, humming at the back of your throat in a passing moment post-listening. That’s the thing about this short masterpiece: it captures split seconds of moments in time, elongating them over glitchy synths and electronic looping, lending affectations of the everyday a dreamlike and gorgeously surreal quality.

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