Llarks - Like A Daydream

A Closer Listen

Like A Daydream is an ode to happiness.

It’s an elixir of life, in which the tired and the hurt take refuge. For centuries, this much-wanted state has eluded many. Those that do find it don’t possess it for long. But doing something you love, and spending time with loved ones, can lead you towards it…for a time, at least.

Perhaps a part of finding happiness (and that’s the key word – finding) is acceptance: acceptance of who you are, and where you are at. Set yourself up for things, and disappointment can follow.

In Like A Daydream, nascent joy has been glimpsed, captured, and distilled. The ambient-tinted songs rustle as they slowly develop, and they flirt with vivacity; it’s impossible to walk away and not feel uplifted. So, if the weight of the world has you down, Llarks will whisk you away.

This is the follow-up to 2017’s cassette release, Reflections, which will be repressed on vinyl later this year along with Metallic Summer Sea. The first track, “Prismfall”, opens up with a cascading, beautiful melody, and the music, while not entirely smooth thanks to the pebble-strewn scattering of electronics, is always pretty.

Lucid guitar swells, fuzzed-out, droning backgrounds, and a series of reversing notes produce psychedelic effects smitten with happiness, drunk on joy and unfettered smiles; positive music. It manages to remain thankful and appreciative without losing itself to the overhanging ghosts of melancholy and ambient loss. Sadness can haunt the edges of a photograph, clinging to a memory where there was once nothing but love. But love is stronger than pain.

The guitar drowns in a lake of warm reverb, its banks surrounded by swirling melodies and interrupting electronics that blink and clink, cycling around inside the music. “When We Find Now” is a promise rather than a memento, its ongoing guitar becoming a drone-vein and a vessel for happiness. “Mirror” sounds like a Midsummer wedding, looking back on a time untouched by a looming spectre of trouble.

Emphasising melodic development, Like A Daydream‘s major tones produce a steady feed of feel-good music. The acidic and effervescent “Cerulean Sway” stays positive, boosting endorphins and keeping the music’s head up with a variety of bold and bright colours, but the cyan melody has become entangled in its cluttered electronics and is already in the process of disappearing, choking. Similar to The Disintegration Loops, the notes decay before the ears, the moment already beginning to dissolve.

Nothing lasts forever.

Wind-swept days and light evenings are forgotten. Darker nights become the status quo, and the arrows of a fleeting romance are pulled from wounded flesh. Happiness is fleeting. Struggles are more realistic. The music begins to erode, and that only leads to silence. Reality rears its uncaring head. The elixir shatters, like a daydream. (James Catchpole)

Available here