DPA is proud to release the cassette edition of Patois’ enchanted, mind-melting pop-art saga Chemtrails. An exploration of romantic fantasy and disillusionment, love consummated and love disintegrated, Chemtrails is singer/composer Daniel Johnson’s latest triumph of melody and emotion. Some songs deconstruct the backbeat banger and instead pull the listener into a realm of smeary, disorienting unfamiliarity while always providing just enough line (most often an unforgettable melody) to help guide the way. Other songs, like lead track “Medicinal,” seem ready for a top-down drive along the coast of some undisclosed dreamscape. Fans of everything from Prince to Talk Talk to Blood Orange to Twin Shadow should find much to savor in Patois’ merger of damage and melody, rhythm and haze; you could find yourself singing along or tripping hard, smiling or crying, and it’d all be good. This one bears repeated listens and each spin will take you somewhere new, or back to someplace you’d forgotten, to which you’ll arrive with a slightly warped perspective, all of it washed in those sweet melodic messages Daniel’s been hurling into the universe for many years…

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