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"The latest release for Island House Recording's Tramway Digitals series comes to us in the form of Sympathetic Magic by All The Golden, a project of prolific UK indie rock lifer Pete Gofton. Within the echoing halls of this album, Gofton explores the concept of "bedroom music" - the freedom, excitement and potential yielded by the interaction of a solitary artist and a simple set of tools, translating their experiences into sounds. A hermetic setting for musical development. Upon repeated listens, what feels to me like the album's thesis was cemented in my mind by the contrast between the first two tracks - the washed out, oceanic ambience of "Pink Saturday Mornings" yields, via an ideally placed backwards cymbal sound, to the melancholic homespun goth-pop of "Days of Running Wild" - the later song reminds me of a Robert Smith home demo for a Cure track, which is a high compliment, as I at one point became so obsessed with Robert Smith's home recordings I compiled all the ones available streaming into a long playlist.

The rest of Sympathetic Magic hovers and hangs somewhere between these two poles, letting the listener bask in drifts of soft guitars and synths or roll along on dubbed-out beats. My favorite example of drum programming here is the clattering percussion of "Chinatown Bus", a noisy song that feels like perfect onomatopoeia for its title and not a little like one of the more techno-leaning My Bloody Valentine jams. Gofton's deep experience as a musician and producer shows here in his sonic vocabulary - like all of the best lofi/DIY music, avant garde instincts merge seamlessly with pop sensibilities, abrasive moments are perfectly balanced with subtle beauty. As a listener you are both lulled and prodded, but most importantly you are reminded how vital the alchemy of solitary musical creation can be"

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