Nitetime Rainbows EP - A Sunny Day In Glasgow

Nitetime Rainbows

A Sunny Day In Glasgow
Mis Ojos Discos Records.

SCQ Rating: 73%

If there’s one record I feel could’ve made significant waves on my year-end lists last year, it’s Ashes Grammar, an album I sought to pick up several times last fall but managed to slip from my memory each time I walked into a record store. Since catching its cover on several high-profile Best Albums… lists in December, I’ve again somehow forgotten to seek it out so clearly I needed a greater incentive. Skeleton Crew Quarterly, look no further than Nitetime Rainbows, an EP’s worth of additional and reworked tracks that share its parent-albums love of twisted pop psychedlia. Catching up to these Philly-based musicians a few months after the completion of Ashes Grammar, Ben Daniels – on an unexpected break from employment - began dusting off these shelved songs and toying around with bandmembers Annie Fredrickson and Josh Meakim. Although the results of this labour-of-love may resemble what some of us remember as a Maxi-Single (since the title track was a popular choice on Ashes Grammar), Nitetime Rainbows EP is a shapeshifting addendum that celebrates new material with recent remixes.

As far as that title track goes: once you’ve heard ‘Nitetime Rainbows’, you’ll join me in seeking out A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s 2009 full-length. It’s that ear-pleasing. And what first explores the notion that this EP is more than leftovers is how its dreamy dance rhythms melt effortlessly into the hazy yet immediate new song ‘Daytime Rainbows’, a layered yet garage-y piece of pop confection. ‘So Bloody, So Tight’ finds the trio settling into wall-of-sound grooves and a building trance-like urgency so nuanced, it can’t help but make a fine centerpiece. After the hazy experimental collage of ‘Piano Lessons’, A Sunny Day In Glasgow collect some varied takes of their lead song, with each remixer steering ‘Nitetime Rainbows’ in a different direction. The Buddy System remix emphasizes the single’s electronic sheen while Kranky artist Benoit Pioulard and Ezekiel Honig take drone-inspired directions. A sweet, summery EP that clocks a generous thirty-minutes, Nitetime Rainbows is that last push I needed to realize A Sunny Day In Glasgow can’t be ignored or put off any longer.