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Reviewed by Tim Gruar

Instant Fantasy: The Wet EP

Reviewed by Tim Gruar

Instant Fantasy: The Wet EP

Following in the footsteps of Watercolours and Race Banyon / Lontalius is Christchurch bedroom producer Gemma Syme (Instant Fantasy), who describes this project as “sexual hypno-drone… songs about tears, getting moist and that sweat you forgot about that happens when you sleep next to another person.”

Wake Up With Bruises drifts cheerlessly across the speakers reminding me of The Cocteau Twins and Sigur Rós. A gloomy mist remains on the moor for I Don’t See An Honest Man, a mere ghost of a song, held together by a single techno drum beat and delicate reverberating harmonies from Syme’s honey sweet mezzo. Sad starkness continues through to the gloomy end on I’ve Given Up On You. Syme describes these as break up songs, with a sense of freedom and hope. Her light touch and singular chord constructions frame the desperation in her voice beautifully. I understand that at times less is definitely more, but to my ear these deliberately simple sketches sound like incomplete ideas – that would be well worthy of fleshing out with more players, more instruments and more life.