Jordan Burchel is a Spring Hill, FL-born, Gainesville, FL-based indie rock/psych rock/dream pop multi-instrumentalist and producer whose forthcoming sophomore effort Vowel Sounds is inspired both his his experience growing up in a small, quiet, friendly and somewhat indistinct Gulf Coast town that eventually ballooned into a prototypical, sagging, shapeless suburb by the 2008 financial crash. According to Burchel, the town was too safe to have a meaningful grudge over its deterioration and too broke to be in any real motion, and as a result it felt like a cultural no-man’s land. The material on his forthcoming album partially focuses on life in the “data drip” — in which a constant media stream blurs once sharpened lines of individual and social definition and creates an urgent sense of authenticity while also exploring Burchel’s dysfunctional relationships with people, food and stuff. And in some way, the material serves as a sort of transcript of a many years-long internal dialogue that may be as stable (or unstable) as its creator.
Vowel Sounds’ latest single “Coffee Breath” will further cement the Gainesville, FL-based multi-instrumentalist and producer’s burgeoning reputation for carefully crated rock with deeply introspective lyrics that sonically draws from psych rock and dream pop — although in this case, “Coffee Breath” much like the work of Drakkar Nowhere sounds as though it also draws from 70s AM rock as Burchel’s crooning is paired with shuffling drumming and subtly bluesy psych rock guitar chords. But just underneath the surface is a subtly mischievous sense of irony.
Animated by Tristan Whitehall at Squiggle Dot, the recently released video for “Coffee Breath” playfully nods at Dire Straits‘ legendary and envelope pushing “Money for Nothing” but with an insouciance to the proceedings as the video follows an anthropomorphic coffee cup as it journeys through a Dali-esque desert to a surrealist living room and back to the desert — and during the journey, the coffee cup encounters a snake seductively wrapping itself around an anthropomorphic apple, an hourglass with a skull from it as the coffee cup holds another coffee cup and later drinks from it. It’s surreal but with a gloriously mischievous glee.