GRMLN is the name used for the recording project of prolific artist, Yoodoo Park, a Japanese / American musician residing in Kyoto, Japan.

Whilst I have taken a keen interested in all five of the albums he has released since 2019 alone,  there is certainly something about Laughing Shadow that seems more fully formed, as though it is something of a culmination and/or defining moment of all that has gone before.

Essentially, there are three inextricably linked nuances present here. Initially, tracks such as Lonely Cowboy, Old Days, Wings and the superlative Sandcastle, represent a darker, almost hypnotic, late 80s post punk darkness. Or at least they would do if the precocious nature of the jangled, isolated riffs that each track is rooted to, did not prevent them from completely falling over the ‘melancholy precipice’.

The best of the album, as heard in Another Turning Car, Glass and In The Sun, are also wrapped around a core isolated riff, but this time the jangled vibrancy is more lucid and the ambience of recent acts like Middleneck and Gushh add a beautiful sparsity that has been omnipresent of all of this act’s releases.

The final nuance and perhaps the most surprising, is heard in the closing triple salvo Destructive Surfer, Midnight Train Station and Young Forever. Here Park simply lets loose, cranks up the reverb/distortion drenched shoegaze, adds a 17 Years Old and Berlin Wall type wall of noise energy and ensures that the album will be memorable for a grit that is beyond just the sheer beauty of it all.

No doubt another album will be with us in another few months. Let’s hope it is of a similar brilliance !!! Out today (01.10.21), grab a (digital only) copy here.

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