Gayngs - Relayted

Gayngs’ roots lie in, of all places, 10cc. Producer Ryan Olson started the project – which features members of Megafaun, Bon Iver, Doomtree, and about a million other acts – after listening to the Mancunian soft-rockers’ I’m Not In Love one too many times. You can hear the influence not only on their cover of Godley & Creme’s Cry, but in the fact that everything on Relayted has been strictly recorded at a funereal 69 beats per minute, or the speed at which Celine Dion makes tea.

The effect is an intentionally dirgey and exceptionally strange album that sounds like pop music being played on a malfunctioning tape deck and demands multiple listens, just to work out what the hell is going on. Dipping its toe in everything from soft-rock to hip-hop to R&B and sixties soul, the songs all manage the trick of sounding roughly the same, completely unique, and uniformly superb. [Barry Nicolson]