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Now that we’ve had ample time to metabolize our holiday meal, might as well move back to the normal programming with the final New Music Friday of November. And today we’re listening to Austin singer-guitarist-producer Joseph McCaffrey, who you might recognize as the cofounder of mid-aughts indie pop outfit Nightmare of You. It’s been a little over a decade since we last heard from NoY, and now that McCaffrey’s entered his 40s, he’s leaning into that middle aged call to cultivate.
That’s right, just last month McCaffrey formally introduced us to his new solo project Impasto Gardens, a visually inspired crossbreed of shoegaze, pop rock, and indie psych – tangled somewhere in between Ride, Slow Dive, Explosions in the Sky, The Stone Roses, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. Late last month, the first single for Impasto Garden’s upcoming eponymous debut, “Support Systems”, made for a great introduction to McCaffrey’s newfound style, and has already racked up 40,000 spins on Spotify alone. And today he takes those textured nuances even further with the LP’s second harvest ahead of its release next January.
As the eighth of Impasto Garden‘s near-dozen tracks, “Glass Dose” provides a pivotal beat to transition into the album’s final act. Spacey guitar subdivisions and a complex drum pattern instantly paint a picture in the initial moments of “Glass Dose”, and as the reverb soars, so does the sense of translucent psychedelia in this succinct yield that’s strong enough to stand on its own – complete with quick-pan piano, un-buriable bass lines, and vegetative vocals.
