New Albums
SAM MEHRAN
Cold Brew
WEIRD WORLD
7/10
Posthumous collection of indie outsider’s lo-fi gems
Sam Mehran was best known as a member of short-lived newrave upstarts Test Icicles – along with Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes – who then retreated into his own world of psychedelic bedroom pop. Over the years he released a stream of trippy nuggets as Outer Limits Recordings, Matrix Metals, Green Crack et al, assembling an intriguing body of work. Cold Brew arrives three years after he took his own life, aged 32, and collects the tracks he was working on in LA before he died. Overseen by his father, it’s a bittersweet mix of bubblegum grunge and bite-sized glam that underlines his knack for uncanny pop.