English Summer is the solo recording project of Caleb Carr from Clare in South Australia. So far Carr appears to have been embracing all the glorious brevity that today’s digital world has provided, as he has drifted a dozen or so singles onto Bandcamp since June 2020.

Perhaps the main difference with his usage of the digital format, is that the  listener can sometimes be left with the feeling that there is unfinished business. For rather than displaying the penchant of many digital ‘singles acts’ to just get their music into the public domain, Carr’s tracks are so very considered and perfectly rounded, that they deserve to be accompanied by ‘more’, in an EP / Album format.

Albeit in the form of a demos EP, this has finally happened with seven demo tracks of previously released recordings and brand new tracks, that never quite got the singles treatment for a ‘whatever’ reason that is hard to decipher, due to the fact that As You Walked Away… is completely devoid of filler.

At it’s most dulcet, downplayed and melancholic, tracks such as see I Dream, A New Colour For You and Mourning Colours, slow down the tempo and slide distant chiming riffs through a jangly post-punk ambience. It is a sound that resonates with both The Chamelons / The Wake aesthetic and typifies a mid 80’s time when the UK jangle-pop scene was colliding and beginning to usurp, the era’s post-punk dominance.

However, English Summer, is anything but another 80s re-enactment, as the most recent mix of jangle-gaze and subtle commerciality of a modern act such as Jesse D’Kora, is heard in She’s Falling Down (The Art of Gracelessly Falling Apart), Coffee & Cigarettes and the superlative standout, Rachel’s Dance. Despite the pop vibrancy, all avoid any accusations of overt sugary, courtesy of Carr’s, Cave meets Cole, dark meets smooth, vocal inflections.

Let’s hope a full length release of this great act’s work is just around the corner, as his is a sound thT certainly deserves the widest of audiences.

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