Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, How I Long To Feel That Summer In My Heart (Mantra/Beggars Banquet) 9+
While most Americans have not heard of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, the wild-eyed Welsh band has been kicking around since 1990. Their quirky and sometimes impenetrable blend of sixties psychedelia, seventies prog rock and druidic Welsh-sung folk ballads have kept them under wraps as cult favorites. Their seventh album, How I Long To Fell That Summer In My Heart could, and should, be their breakthrough. The more prickly experiments have been left behind, as they expand upon the pastoral acoustic vibe from their Blue Trees EP. The album arrives at the perfect time to evoke the melancholy one feels when summer is all-too-soon over. Rather than bucolic splendor of sunshine and butterflies, this quiet, folksy music is definitively autumnal. There is a strong country presence that would be surprising if it weren't for the foreshadowing offered by "Faraway Eyes" in 1999's Spanish Dance Troupe. The laid-back "Honeymoon With You" sounds like an outtake of early-70s (ex-Byrd) Gene Clark, accentuated by a Hammond organ and Morgan Childs' fiddling. Richard James' and Euros Childs' feather-light harmonies on "Easy Love" reference The Everly Brothers, while "These Winds Are In My Heart" resembles a celtic-flavored Fairport Convention, with exquisitely mournful cries of slide guitars and squeeze boxes. This is not really a rootsy hoedown, however. The sound retains a subtle post-psychedelic sheen that is more Mercury Rev than Palace Brothers -- sublimely earthy details like Sparklehorse mixed with Kingston Manx and Pinetop Seven's brand of orchestral Americana. "Cān Megan" gets more showy with a swaying horn section. Next to the understated beauty of most of the album, the beguiling "Christina" is practically grandiose, with a full eight piece string section and choir vocals. Among an embarrassment of riches of soft-spoken chamber pop albums this year, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci stand out by offering one indispensable emerald-hewed gem after another.
