Peter Stringer-Hye

So, I don’t know whether to toss this into the reissues or the reviews, but either way this needs a pop to the top of your list. A few years back Peter Stringer-Hye, who you may (should) know from his band The Paperhead, issued a solo record on his own imprint Saffron Records. The album likely came and went without your notice. I missed it too, but luckily came upon it digitally a year ago, dismayed that the physicals were long out of stock. Such are the origins of so many private press gems, I suppose. Like those fabled and hard to find nuggets from the past Pan is an excellent collection of psychedelic pop and warbled folk that occasionally wanders into power pop territory. It’s akin to his work with The Paperhead, but it pulls away any of the obfuscation that haloed the band, feeling like the most open and honest vision of Stringer-Hye’s songwriting.

There’s a touch of the kind of psych-pop that pounded ‘00s radio in songs like “Tears of Joy” and “Evil Glow,” with the record feeling far bigger than it’s humble roots. The songs meld acoustic scratch with huge amp fry that would have sit well alongside cuts from The Soundtrack of Our Lives, Darker My Love, or Secret Machines in the early aughts. But what works best about Pan is that Stringer-Hye pairs that sense of towering pop with the air of someone who’s been under the spell of Kevin Ayers. He dovetails out of the amp smoke to slip down timorous eiderdowns of pop that feel as fragile as the riffs feel mountainous. In moments when the Ayers and Robert Wyatt vibes take over, the record pulls out of the storm for some gossamer moments like opener “I Am The Stone” or the lengthy closer “Rolling On.” The good news is that after years of elusive availability you no longer need to eye copies on Discogs for $150. Trouble In Mind is distributing the LP version from Saffron and if you missed out on this one, I’d highly recommend rounding back to pick it up.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.