Mellowmaker is the twelfth studio album by Black Market Karma, the British solo project of singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Stanley Belton. I imagine his mind as a well-organized cabinet of curiosities with drawers full of influences from neo-psych, electronica, baroque pop, hip-hop, and traditional Indian music, which his hands mold together into a colorful patchwork of hypnotic melodies that rock fans will also appreciate.
The eleven songs on the new record are a logical next step after last year’s Wobble LP, but let me quote the press release for nuance: “The washed-out saturated vocals and jangling Vox guitars are there, but the in-built fuzz and repeater sounds on the cherished vintage Ultrasonic get some heavier usage here. Synths take more of a back-burner in favor of dreamy mellotron samples. Drums are still recorded with one mic and ran through guitar amps or mixed with drum machines, but lean even more into 60s dancefloor breakbeats.”
The title of standout track The Sound Of Repetition is telling in this context, but it is actually much more than that. Self-doubt meets cassette-tinged confidence—lo-fi, that is—in analogue bliss and intangible dreams. Cracked perfection in a psychedelic mirror, clever and addictive.
Mellowmaker—written, performed, and produced by Stanley Belton—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Fuzz Club Records.