Seafoam Walls

★★★★ XVI DAYDREAM LIBRARY SERIES. CD/DL/LP

First full-length from Miami “Caribbean jazzgaze” quartet

To make music as unique as Seafoam Walls’, singer-guitarist Jayan Bertrand recently explained, “You have to pull from a lot of different places”. Indeed, XVI draws cannily from an eclectic guest list of influences, echoing the mystery of early Durutti Column, Thundercat’s bruised melancholia, the home-made psychedelic soul of Shuggie Otis and the subterranean inventiveness of TV On The Radio, but emphatically avoiding any pigeonhole. The group’s enchanting debut is a sui generis treat, rhythms shifting and metamorphosing at their inspired whim and languid, FX-masked guitar lines coiling like bejewelled tendrils as Bertrand crafts unlikely underground pop and hypnotic instrumentals. Alive with surprises, this music ensnares by stealth, the playful stop-start songcraft of You Can’t Have Your Cake And Ego Too, the introspective slowmotion funk of You Always Said