Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl first met at Coachella about 10 years ago, since when they’ve co-opted their romantic union into a musical one. Acoustic Sessions, their first album as The GOASTT, arrived in the wake of a Mark Ronson-produced single in 2010. Its stripped nature hinted at a tripsy folk future, with gentle overtones of 60s psych. Pleasant as that was, Midnight Sun feels like the first true flowering of their combined talents.
There are delightfully spacey tunes about Orpheus, “lipstick anarchists” and forays down the yellow brick road, while the settings – all cosmic whimsy and rich dreamscapes – suggest a bucolic American pow-wow between Kevin Ayers and Teenage Fanclub.
While it all feels very deliberately kaleidoscopic, there’s a genuine sense of innocence and wonder to these songs that ultimately wins out. Their voices dovetail sweetly (hers like Isobel Campbell’s; his like his dad’s), while the arrangements are endlessly inventive, with splashy beats and warm traces of The Zombies and latterday voyagers Tame Impala.
Hard to pick a highlight, but the sweeping fade of Moth To A Flame sounds like one giant hallelujah to the heavens.
