A Carnal Light

This self-titled, self-released debut from recent Guelph defectee Justin Baily is supposed to be a 26-track EP but I like to call it a box of kick ass four- to five-track EPs. Baily’s written two largely ignored and admittedly generic albums with the Platonic Shadows, and spent time on guitar with current Montreal alternative electro group Ghetto Pony, but A Carnal Light is surely his first complete and groundbreaking work. If there were one Carnal Light for every Postal Service, the music industry would be a lot less frustrating for everyone. Rather than flossing over sophisticated commercial sonics, Baily buries the poppiest dance floor progressions under angular guitar riffs and wholeheartedly half-assed vocals, making esoteric pieces of experimental songwriting splendour. The bulk of the songs feature the kind of unruly production that would make Pavement cringe but framing the kind of post-disco, nearly unstable key programming of A Carnal Light, it’s inimitably wicked.