THIS WEEK Portland's Post Moves release their newest full-length, Mystery World Science Show. Its 12 songs of delicately moody guitar pop lazily but purposefully amble like a fat bumblebee buzzing from daisy to daisy.
Sam Wenc's campy, cerebral lyrics and Julian Morris' backing vocals are married to Americana-tinged melodies, sounding like the Grateful Dead's American Beauty slowed down to half-speed. Nathaniel Kornet's basslines and Morris' airily jazzy percussion add some buoyancy to what could easily skirt into jam-band territory. Wenc's guitar work is not unlike that of self-described "jizz jazz" musician (and self-proclaimed Dead fan) Mac DeMarco, but Wenc is a much more sympathetic storyteller—he soulfully coos existential lullabies like a stoned gondolier navigating channels of detached, half-conscious thought.
On the album's opener, "Romantic Dimwits," he sings, "When I go to sleep, I freeze/When I am kept awake, I thaw," in between lushly purring riffs and rolling bouts of drums. The track is ever-so-slightly off-balance—it mimics the feeling of nodding off into your soup at the dinner table before jolting awake.