Album Review: Fascinator - Water Sign

So many synth acts fall into the honey-trap of shallow nostalgia (Donny Benet survives intact), but Fascinator's Johnny Mackay seems to have found a healthy amount of inspiration in his free-thinking New York environs (and its history) that gives his new album Water Sign authenticity.

There are songs on Water Sign that wouldn't be out of place in the Hacienda's "Nude" Fridays playlist in the mid-'80s. Many of its slippery Tropicana-flavoured arrangements lean heavily into an endearing brand of sonic kitsch, and it's constantly shifting, demonstrating a fondness for multiple sounds lifted from pretty disparate sources (Happy Mondays, Billy Corgan, U2, Pond, among others), synthesising them quite well without sacrificing too much of Mackay's sense of fun.

Not everything works (side one feels cheap, and it doesn't find its footing until about track three), and it takes a few spins to really sink in, but once it does sink it really hums. It flows from bubblegum to dance to krautrock, Balearic beats shifting into a motorik psyche drone, and a strong Chromatics-style down-tempo house beat drives the anthemic Drenched Out, a quivering guitar line buzzing in the background.