New Music: Jimi Lucid – Fetish

Jimi Lucid’s Fetish For A New World LP unveils some sublime sonic highs and exposed emotional lows, as you can hear on Fetish.

Lucid – aka New York musician Julien-Alexandre Yves Guichard – doesn’t follow the standard approach to shoegaze on Fetish. On the first listen, the vocals do dive into the wells of introspection and undefined longing that are hallmarks of the genre. It soon becomes obvious that he brings a rock attitude and flair to his performance, steely yet exposed, as the track sheds its reserve.   

The drums are punkish and bleak, the guitars becoming sharper and more serrated, as if following the turmoil of the lyrics. You could easily be tempted to file the track next to the grainier outer reaches of My Bloody Valentine’s oeuvre; however, that underlying hardness at its core, and its smouldering embers of alt rock, upend any straightforward categorisation of Fetish and its inventive parent album.

Fetish For A New World was released on the 11th of September and can be heard on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music. You can discover more listening alternatives and all the latest news from Jimi Lucid on Instagram and Facebook.

Header photo by Rachel Filler