Capsule review: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - How I long to feel that summer in my heart (2001)

Gorky's always worked best in small doses. Got it just right on 2001's The Blue Trees EP. After they beefed up the sound with strings on this majestically humble heartbreaker. Fabulous for one LP side. By the second side I no longer care.

Capsule review: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Sleep/Holiday (2003)

Sleep.

360 records from 2000: 30. Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci: The blue trees

Country: UK
Artist: Band
Career: recording since 1994
Language: English
Genre: Gentle psych-folk pop


No slur, but this is nothing more than an extended single for ‘Face like summer’ to me. ‘Face like summer’ is a perfect song. I have played it, without exaggeration, on repeat for half an hour at a stretch. And even with tears in my eyes, it’s still a perfect song. No matter that it’s four verses and one endless chorus (they couldn’t quite find a way back from the chorus and I can’t blame ‘em). Love the clumsy piano at the start, the way the second keyboard adds support on verse two, the breakdown, verse three with acoustic guitar and backings, verse four with bass and then ‘I know that’s where it begins’ repeated endlessly without any musical changes or build up, just repeated like a mantra for all the fallible human beings for whom happiness is so hard to find and whose dreams so easily fade away.

(The other seven tracks, including three instrumentals, set you up for that song in the best possible way. Also check out the VU-esque ‘Fresher than the sweetness in water’.)

At its best: Face like summer, also: Fresher than the sweetness in water, The blue trees, Wrong turnings