Thumb World

Named with both a defining characteristic of homo sapiens and the proliferation of handheld devices in mind, Thumb World is the fourth officially sanctioned album from Johnny Lynchs long-running solo project, Pictish Trail. The founder and operator of Lost Map Records (Rozi Plain, Seamus Fogarty, Tuff Love), Lynch offers his usual eclectic blend of psychedelic folk, fuzz, electronic whimsy, and contemplative and clever singer/songwriter fare here, though the recording quality and performance takes have gradually improved with each release, making the lo-fi label apply more in spirit than sound. Issued on Fire Records, Thumb World was produced and mixed by prior collaborator Rob Jones. Introducing the idea that were all trapped in cyclical patterns, a recurring theme of the album, first track Repeat Neverending opens with layered, repeated musical phrases of varying lengths before phased effects lead into a stoned-out vocal line that takes in the visual patterns of a scene at a race track (begin at the end). The album remains trippy at its core, passing through reflective psych-folk (Pig Nice), hooky, warped rock (Bad Algebra), and mournful electro (Heart Eyes) before ending on two over-six-minute songs that shift toward the dancefloor. Turning Back establishes a dingy, ruminative lite dance-rock before picking up the beats and adding rhythmic vocal samples and launching into legitimate club fodder, while closer Thumb World is a spacy epic that eventually adopts a blippy, surreal synth pop. Taken together, Thumb World is the type of album that should make for an entertaining, weekend-afternoon diversion with a timely world view. Recommended for playlisting: Bad Algebra. ~ Marcy Donelson