“LAMPIN” By Synthonic (Album)

“Lampin,” the fresh full-length from Synthonic, slips onto your speakers like a Sunday-morning stroll through mellow vibes. It's sound sits at the crossroads of easy funk, modern acid-jazz flickers, and studio perfectionism, yet somehow feels both vintage and strikingly now. Sidmouth, a quiet seaside town in Devon, claims the project as hometown heirloom, and the album itself has nine tracks that let you wander without glancing at the track timer. May 23, 2025, is the date carved into the metadata, so mark it wherever vinyl and digital ears gather- Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL, even the bargain-hunter playlists on YouTube and Amazon Music.

First up, “All Day, Every Day” takes the front seat and dares you to stay still; the horns snap, the bass grins, and the groove melts chairs if you let it. Three- and four-part horn layers ripple through the mix, a testament to the live-session energy that Vasilis Xenopoulos and Jack Birchwood bring, along with a stack of smaller guest voices you might not catch until the second listen. Detail hogs the backstage spotlight, so what sounds casual has been folded, pressed, and polished with obsessive care. The final blend sits warm in your chest, a little shy of syrup but miles past brittle.

“Chameleons,” the second cut on the record, unfurls with a slinkier tread that edges toward the shadowy side of funk. Jeremy Dunning flirts with his guitar, spooling out whispers and stabs that feel like late-night street scenes when the light keeps changing. Each fresh layer of collected horns, brushed drums, and distant synth cloud reflects the song title and the idea of constant shift. Slip the track on while gliding through city darkness or settle under headphones and let that restless mood loop.

The follow-ups “Tonight” and “The Quirk” dart in from opposite sides of the playground. Tonight leans neo-soul, draping sultry keys and a mischievous pocket over the groove until it almost swings away. A heartbeat later, "The Quirk" yanks the wheel, stacking reversed Rhodes and wobbly melodic angles that refuse to settle. The surprise is delightful without crossing into academic weirdness, a gentle nudge rather than a shove. Together, they sketch a portrait of an artist who knows not every moment has to shout, simply purr.

Track five, “Big Fat Funk,” lives up to its showy title and then some. Picture a dance floor catching the cork-popping brass rush of an early-70s New Orleans second-line parade. Valere Speranzas' thumping bass holds the whole thing steady as punchy horns stab up top. You almost expect a row of black-and-gold banners flickering in the air. Halfway through the set, it's the kind of song that vaults out of the speakers and demands you move, feet or heart, or both.

“El Paseo” glides in right after, carrying a loose-limbed Latin-jazz swagger that rewrites the mood of the album in an instant. The drum kit teases a quiet push-and-pull through side-chaining, so the rhythm seems to breathe, swoop, and settle like a hot breeze off pavement. One moment you're under a slanted sun, palm fronds rubbing against each other, and the night air smelling of warm blossoms. Production houses claim locale and memory on paper, but here Synthonic pins the whole scene to the back of your eyelids with sound alone.

Songwriters sometimes describe a centerpiece cut as the heartbeat. In this case, “Lampin” plays that role and then some. Its mellow pulse, warm and almost satin against the ear, lands somewhere near a wide-open skyline at dusk, the kind of light that holds on for one encore before night settles. Breathable jazz chords drift through the mix, inviting an automatic head nod as slow as the moment demands. Picture sunlight curling into the living room on a lazy Sunday- that loose, generous mood lives here. Even veteran players gush over the track, calling it, alongside All Day, Every Day, the disc's showpiece. Behind that inviting surface, the arrangement hides a web of unexpected shifts that, somehow, never pricks the listener.

“I Said I'm Sorry” invites quiet reflection and indulgent apologies. A softer backdrop of lilting melodies and velvet grooves tempers the preceding tension. That pause gifts the sequence an unexpected emotional anchor just before the very last track. “Spiral” swells in on itself, laying a thicket of drifting synth clouds and open-space ambience atop the mix. The composition spins out like smoke, leaving the speakers a wide room to breathe while everything gradually disappears. “Lampin” is proof that Synthonic can polish circuitry and still sound like it cares about the soul of the sound. The finish is tidy but human, the musicianship razor sharp without flexing, the orchestration clever yet warm to the ear. Casual listeners might nod along once, while gearheads still lose themselves in the spectrum. This collection pinpoints how far the project has come, and the stubborn pursuit of detail shines in every corner.

“Lampin” is out now. Hit Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, Deezer, TIDAL-pretty much any corner of the web where music sits-and let it roll. Whether you spend your weekends hunting jazz-funk rarities or you simply need a sonic pick-me-up after a long day, this record scores the moment. Big thanks to the crew behind the curtain: Vasilis Xenopoulos, Jack Birchwood, Valere Speranza, Jeremy Dunning. You turned tape into vibe, and it shows. “Lampin” lives somewhere between a playlist and a room you want to hang out in for hours. The air inside that room shifts every time you hit play again. Vintage warmth brushes shoulders with modern gleam throughout the running time, a meeting of dusty records and fresh studio polish. Technique is on full display, but so is the messy beat of feeling. In an age that sometimes favors the sterile click of over-engineered pop, “Lampin” lands like a hand-written letter. It is relaxed, confident, and undeniably cool. Synthonic just pulled the curtain back on what sounds like the start of a bigger story. Whatever they write next, plenty of us will be first in line.

Written by Manuel