The Boy With Two Heads - The Good Consumer EP

The Boy With Two Heads, aka Jamie Laurance, has been making music for most of his life here in Norwich. His latest instrumental offering, The Good Consumer EP, does not fail to lift the spirits, prick up the ears and make the heart melt. Jamie's made the EP as a musical response to feeling swamped and overwhelmed by life, and listening to it was pure escapism for me.

This six track EP starts with Petroleum. It makes me  feel like I'm driving towards an 80's sunset in the desert; it's captured beautifully, with competent and creative live guitar alongside synthesisers and drum machines, leading to a mad feedback moment towards the end. Second track Larger Cooler Stores is a kind of ambient threat, with echoey guitar that sings like a human voice alongside a nasty rattlesnake rattle. Soaked Up features a low, heavy trip hop beat, and Trying to Destroy a Feeling has a sweet, twangy guitar with a phat hip hop beat to it, followed by swathes of velvet guitar towards the end Meat-heads is the most assertive track on what is actually a pretty dreamy album, with a filthy beat. My favourite, A Deeply Frozen Brain, starts with an immediate ear worm of a wistful riff, breaking down and filling out with a sweet rhythm that I never want to end.  There are so many influences to this music, it's hard to know how exactly to label it. It's a mix of electronica, hip hop, post rock, shoe gazing....in fact, I'm just gonna stop there because I would never know when to stop otherwise. It's unlabellable. And unbelievably good.