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Mar 27, 2017 The Proper Ornaments By Charles Steinberg

It’s raining today in New York and I can’t think of a better thing to listen to than The Proper Ornaments cover of The Jesus & Mary Chain’s “Deep One Perfect Morning”, off of their immaculate Darklands album. The London indie pop group is the project of James Hoare (Ultimate Painting, Veronica Falls) and Max Oscarnold (Toy). Their second album Foxhole was released in January through Slumberland Records (US) Today they surprise us with their stripped down and lulled out rendition of a classic. It’s a welcome surprise at that.

Taken away are JMC’s signature tom tom’s and bloody electric guitars and instead we drift through a warm key laden acoustic version of “Deep One Perfect Morning” that touches on, among other things, the best of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The Proper Ornaments label Force Field sheds some light on the latest album: ” On Foxhole they’ve sliced away a whole stratum of their sound, removing some distortion and lowering the frequency of plectrum strokes to allow more nuanced, piano-led ideas to emerge.” Says James Hoare, “We wanted to move in a slightly different direction from ‘Wooden Head’, away from the distorted guitars and into a more peaceful area…That’s why the record has a laid back, conversational, not imposing or anxious feel in my opinion,” Adds Oscarnold, “There’s also the technical limitation of doing it on an 8 track which gives the songs a sparser sound.”

Between the pleasant surprise of album Foxhole to begin 2017, and the reverent ode to The Jesus and Mary Chain today, The Proper Ornaments are ingratiating themselves swiftly.