Puma Blue

Swum Baby E.P.

(Inner City Float)

8/10

Take the softness of Elliot Smith’s sincerity and sadness, the warmness of Jeff Buckley’s longing; add a pinch of Chet Baker’s pitch perfect pipes and stir lightly with Mac Demarco and Tommy Guerrero’s stoner grooves and you will pretty much have Puma Blue, a.k.a. Jacob Allen, presented before you.

Swum Baby is five tracks of sparse, D.I.Y. soundscapes, jam-packed with emotion, bliss and beauty.

The E.P. starts and ends with my personal favourite tracks: (She’s) Just a Phase, a gentle, floating musical feather that tickles your ears, while the singer tries to convince himself and us that the “creature of my desire” is “easy to replace”. The words trickle out mournfully and passionately, though I suspect, if my interpretation of Puma Blue’s pining is true, he may need to take the subject matter back to his therapist to get proper closure.

Want Me is wonderfully dreamy yet haunting. The brush strokes meander around the soft and frilly, catchy chorus like a slow trickling stream; making for a perfect end to an unfeigned and heart-felt extended player.

By Richard Bamford