Connan Mockasin: Caramel – review

There's a complicated subplot running throughout Connan Mockasin's second album. According to the Kiwi psych singer, it involves a dolphin, a man being in love with said dolphin, a car race and ultimately a car crash, but you wouldn't necessarily ascertain all this from listening. Instead, Caramel sounds more like an LSD binge in a sleazy motel, or an elf covering a Barry White album, or maybe even a rom-com set on Mars. Following 2011's revered Forever Dolphin Love, Connan has created a collection of trippy, mutated soul songs wedged between dreamlike interludes (Why Are You Crying features six minutes of panting and sobbing). He mimics the hip-hop mainstream to brilliant effect, and tracks such as Do I Make You Feel Shy, I'm the Man, That Will Find You and Roll With You fuse such a surreal mix of pixie enchantment and pimped-out creepiness that it's impossible not to be seduced.