Diane Coffee: My Friend Fish (Western Vinyl) - album review | Under the Radar Magazine Under the Radar | Music Blog for the Indie Music Magazine
Sunday, November 10th, 2024  

Issue #48 - November/December 2013 - HAIMDiane Coffee

My Friend Fish

Western Vinyl

Dec 13, 2013 Issue #48 - November/December 2013 - HAIM

Diane Coffee is the alter ego of Shaun Fleming, recently seen behind Foxygen’s drumkit. Flemingwho also had a spell voicing Disney characters in shows like Kim Possibleput together his Coffee debut, My Friend Fish, in two weeks. The album is a soundtrack of Fleming’s relocation from the West to the East Coast, and although it was recorded in a cramped Manhattan apartment, the album’s heart lies in the hazy, psychedelic California coastline of half a decade ago.

Fleming credits The Beatles, The Beach Boys, David Bowie, and Bill Withers for the origination of My Friend Fish‘s sound, which is lo-fi in execution yet grand in impact. The album’s gospel-powered, dreamy bent also takes cues from the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver. A dusty yet lively organ runs frantically through “New Years.” In the next breath Fleming goes soulful on “All the Young Girls,” but manages to throw in a good dose of distortion along the way. All is quiet on the lullaby-like “When It’s Known,” where Fleming softly sings his way to dreamland, and “WWWoman” has a spooky, theatrical turn. The switch between crackling and soothing happens more than a few times on My Friend Fish‘s brief half-hour run, which stops it from becoming too repetitiveeven if the album’s ethos doesn’t stray too far from that of Foxygen’s retro one. (www.westernvinyl.com/artists/dianecoffee.html)

Author rating: 6/10

Rate this album
Average reader rating: 9/10



Comments

Submit your comment

Name Required

Email Required, will not be published

URL

Remember my personal information
Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the word you see in the image below:

There are no comments for this entry yet.