Peaking Lights - 936 (2011) [Not Not Fun] // Grade: A-

Thank you, Peaking Lights. For the psychedelia, the dub, the so-hot atmosphere and heady summer vibe. 936 is exactly right for this time of year, this early spring purgatory, when the sun’s all bright and warm-looking but the air’s still too bitter to enjoy it. Peaking Lights, god love ‘em, make everything feel like 90 degrees. Even the foggiest, most faraway atmospherics.

‘Cause really, 936 is a pretty dark daze of a record. These sprawling jams aren’t summery the way we typically think of summer, not dub or post-reggae with that sorta-kinda carefree vibe. There’s a real autumnal darkness to tracks like “All The Sun That Shines” and “Birds of Paradise (Dub Version)”, with echoey guitars curving upwards into just-as-echoey dub rhythms, and Indra Dunis’ vocals like Mama Cass meets Trish Keenan, moaning and humming and drifting away. It’s the rhythm of summer, the heat of it and slow, lazy movement, washed over with the color of bones chilling.

But then—speaking of Mama Cass—”California Dreamin’” was a summer song that wasn’t a summer song, too. The wistful regret, that flute solo, the layers of harmony and reverb: they all felt like so many leaves falling. Peaking Lights haven’t even remotely taken a cue from the Mamas & the Papas, don’t get me wrong—but like “California Dreamin’”, their songs find that balance between chilly and sweltering, paradise and purgatory, all of it colliding to create a near-perfect hallucinogen. So thank you, Peaking Lights. For the heat, the hell, the cold, the escape. Every simmering and disparate bit of it.

- Rue Sauvage