a week in cannes and a hefty stint of 14 hours days at my desk has meant that some stuff has rather inevitably slipped under my radar, like the fact that portland beauties, dolorean released a new album in february. so i’m playing catch up.

the band, who i was lucky enough to see support damien jurado and who, at least in their touring format have featured my second favourite beardy bloke, josh tillman on drums released two resonantly etheral albums resplendant with the kind of lyric writing which makes you think you might actually be the centre of some cruel truman show-esque trick, ’cause how else would anyone know exactly how you feel and then write a song about it?

you can’t win is dolorean’s third outing and al james’ resigned, but somehow hopeful vocal stylings are put to brutally honest work once more on a collection of eleven sublimely personal songs (and i should remind you this is the same guy who’s known as “coach thunder” on the baseball field). harking back to jez’s laurel canyon mixtape theres plenty of the weight of csny and gram parsons, dennis wilson and bill fay in what dolorean do but not in a derivative stoner way, its more that calm benevolance of experience which seeds at the centre of each song. you can feel sunshine warming your back through the laconic strum of a guitar or slide of an ebow.

part of the yep roc family, you can buy the album for the princely sum of $10 to download or if you covet the smell of fresh printed inlay card like i do they’ll send it to you for $13.

so before next week’s dancefest out east (see below) here’s a little downtempo shoreline melancholy from dolorean…

dolorean - beachcomber blues