Sunstack Jones – Last Room at the Petal Motel : Playlist

Liverpool’s Sunstack Jones released an amazing record on Mai 68 Records in 2020 called Golden Repair that I missed when I compiled my Albums of the Year. Had I listened to it in time, it would have surely topped the list. Upon hearing the opening notes of “Where You Gonna Go,” I was already floored. By the end of “Nowhere Near an Ocean”, I was exclaiming out loud to myself. “Distill” is a dreamy tune, lighter fare as a reprieve between the heavier, intense jams of the title track and “Seams.” Graceful riffs, torrid solos and Byrdsian harmonies infused with a Charlatans-esque funk and a Laurel Canyon folk haze make each song on Golden Repair glow.

And the harmonies – absolutely radiant. Recorded live, surrounding one mic while standing in a circle, Sunstack Jones’s warm vocals sound like they’re standing right next to you singing in your ear. With the talents of engineer recording engineer Simon Jones and masterer Nick McCabe at the controls, both fellow dream pop vets from The Verve, the album sounds “exactly like the band envisaged, a moment in time captured like a sonic photograph.”

If the Petal Motel was a real place, as the band has imagined here, we’d be lucky to have Sunstack Jones be the house band at the Sundowner bar. Please check out this amazing album – with headphones. Golden Repair is cinematic, sparkling, a polished, pristine gem of a record.

The mix is set in an imaginary 2020 where the band have a few days off tour in the US. We have arrived at the Petal Motel on a Friday just as President Ocasio-Cortez has declared a 4-day weekend party. At sundown a hipster cowboy says he wants to blast some tunes on his mobile DJ booth and these are the only songs we can remember the next morning x

Get Golden Repair on Bandcamp.