Double Exposure

Description

Double Exposure is not necessarily a fresh start, but this album contains some of the rawest and most deconstructed sounds that James Hoare—of Veronica Falls, Ultimate Painting, and The Proper Ornaments—has recorded to date. For the first time, the guitars take a back seat. This is by no means a conceptual "guitar-free" album; it is simply the end result. It would also be inaccurate to suggest that guitars have been completely banished, especially after the double six-string solo on the album's powerful opening track, Regrets. It's not necessarily Skynyrd, but it is undoubtedly a spine-tingling experience. Following the first album Backwater Collage released in 2024 under the pseudonym Penny Arcade, here is a hallucinogenic experience whose backbone is the drum machine that inspired the songs. It is also an album imbued with a gentle duality. The album features a few guests, but it is essentially a solo album of experimentalism, with compositions bursting through the stereo before fading away again. Nothing is overthought; it is an album of ideas. Like most tracks on the album, it was recorded almost instantaneously, with a simplicity and authenticity that heavy overdubs and meticulous arrangements could never achieve. It is an album that exudes a strong energy. 'Double Exposure' is a collection of no-frills songs. Double Exposure, named after the photographic technique, is made up of layers of ideas that were not written as pieces, but rather as spontaneous melodies that form their own abstract image. The album sits somewhere between the relentless experiments of Syd Barrett and the unapologetic analog innovations of Tim Presley under the name White Fence.