Coy intrigue has at all times been a part of the magic of Gunn’s music; he’s extra doubtless to attract you in shut than to blow your hair again. He emphasizes his most delicate qualities on Daylight Daylight, and the songs really feel like they’re being performed for the good thing about one particular person. A lot of that is as a result of manner Gunn’s melodies dapple and drift out and in of shadow, a top quality Elkington’s preparations underscore. Isolate the acoustic-guitar clang in “Almost There” and also you would possibly hear the opening chime of Primal Scream’s “Movin’ on Up.” Drop it again in amongst Elkington’s strings, which have the subtle fantastic thing about daylight seen via a squint, and so they tackle a disarming sweetness. A lot of Daylight Daylight feels this fashion: majestic sufficient to fill a theater however contained and home. Listening to it might probably really feel like staring into an expertly organized terrarium; it’s exceptional how a lot magnificence can take up so little area.
Gunn takes apparent pleasure in crafting these miniatures. “Morning on Ok Highway” was written after he spent a serendipitous afternoon with Hamish Kilgour of legendary New Zealand indie-rock legends the Clear shortly earlier than his dying in 2022. The pair, who had identified each other in New York, bumped into each other on the road in Auckland. Photos of the day flicker via the lyrics like recollections dissolving (“Painted leather-based jacket whenever you had been crossing the road”) within the heat of Gunn’s strumming and the downy mattress of strings. From a plot perspective, nothing a lot occurs; the pair largely simply stroll round. However the track hangs with the crackling vitality of sudden pleasantry. “The morning felt particular,” Gunn sings. “Prefer it was meant to be.”
Daylight Daylight is commonly shadowed by a sense of finality. “Already the sky is singing/Already the bells are ringing,” Gunn sings in “Almost There,” his voice reassuring as he ushers his beloved towards an afterlife. Dandelion puffs of woodwinds float within the amber gentle of “One other Fade” as Gunn picks out an informal, virtually absentminded solo. It’s an off-handed second, the sort you share with a good friend so shut you don’t need to say a lot whenever you’re collectively. “I really feel the dream slip away,” Gunn sings, “And check out to return.”
