Tracklist:

Act Of – I am Fungus
Static Animal – See You Around
Skirts – Brite Boy (Alex G cover)
Space Mountain – Cloud
Alexander – Going To Sleep
German Error Message – Murmuring
Thelma – Take Me To Orlando
Jeffrey Silverstein – Make Yr Peace (And Have It Too)
camp counselor – museum of broken relationships
Spartan Jet-Plex – Stop
Lala Lala & Why? – Siren 042
Shrimpwitch – Leerers
Sir Babygirl – Flirting With Her
Spielbergs – Five On It
Stella Donnelly – Lunch
Mentalease – Avert a Gaze
Priests – The Seduction of Kansas
Mike Pace and The Child Actors – Hazy, Hot & Humid
Swim Camp – Circle K
BURLY – Kent Lame
Miserable chillers – Cider Palace
Imp of Perverse – Tripping Thru a Hallway On Fire
Go Fever – Olivia
Polyan – Dan Song
Morning River Band – Bury Me
Nigel Wright – Overcast
Denmark – I Know
Sister Wanzala – I Went Whaling in My Gap Year
Body Meat – Nairobi Flex
Derek Piotr – Repeating Bloom (Simon Whetham Remix)
Michael Chinworth – Good As It Gets
Mesa Luna – Dispel
yot club – jaded

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Such lofty aims require idiosyncratic approach, and Mentalease have crafted a singular style that weaves electronic, dream pop, shoegaze and ambient into a patchwork genre for the digital world. Opening track ‘Push a Button’ serves as a perfect example, the bedroom pop sincerity buried beneath electronic layers, a human soul looking for cracks in its robotic surroundings.

The slow-burn ‘Selfie’ is a brooding march of a song, though the assured sound belies the confused lyrical position (“Staring / Into a reflection / Maybe it’s just fiction / Baby what’s the difference?”), while confident rock of ‘Lost Opportunities” is lighter on its feet. However, the track’s sense of motion is interrupted by digital squeals and distortion, as though the track is actually a representation of a song, a hologram caught out by the errors in its matrix.

Closer ‘Avert a Gaze’ continues such themes, casting a world of ghosts and echoes, the truth buried beneath a million reflections. Mentalease offer no way out beyond the reminder that some kernel of reality exists within the sea of simulacra, and though their tone veers from cynical to hysterical to suddenly sad, the range of emotions serves as a reminder of that very fact.

Push a Button is out now and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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