Kreol Lovecall is the nom de plume of Jonathan Richards who spent a decade immersed in the UK psych/noise rock scene as a member of Hey Colossus.
Now, he is evidently in the mood to lighten up with some solo pop tones with arrangements containing "popping drum machine, funky bass and Casio keyboard".
But although the ten songs may initially sound bright and carefree, closer scrutiny reveals darker themes covering existential angst and general social malaise.
They are driven by the desire to find some rhyme and reason in the modern world where the feeling of being lost and alone in a crowd has both physical and digital dimensions.
Whether in cities or cyberspace it is easy to empathize with Richards' grim reflection in Time that "addiction and depression are just symptoms of this earth".
One In Five contains a litany of the horrors that are too familiar from daily news bulletins: "Fire, destruction, war, hatred and grief".
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Meanwhile, songs like Not Composites, Social Spaces and Emojis And Memes address crises of identity and alienation deep in the rotten soul of social media networks.
Like a concerned extra terrestrial, Richards takes an objective, and critical, perspective on the human race. It's not a million miles away from early work of Talking Heads albeit lacking David Byrne's fine-tuned sense of humor and irony.
In short, this is pop culture for high brows.
Kreol Lovecall's website
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