BØRNS - Dopamine

BØRNS made his full-length entrance with Dopamine in 2015, a glittering debut that sounds like 1970s AM radio beamed through a bank of modern synthesizers.

Garrett Borns had already caught ears with his Candy EP, and Dopamine expands that sugar rush into a full album of falsetto hooks and glam swagger. Working chiefly with producer Tommy English, he chased the swooping, stacked harmonies of the Beach Boys and the shimmer of 1960s and 1970s pop, then polished everything to a high gloss.

Electric Love is the obvious calling card, a song that seems to crackle off the speakers with its pulsing synths and soaring chorus. 10,000 Emerald Pools floats on a dreamy, reverb-washed haze, while American Money brings a lush, cinematic sweep that later earned a second life as a single. Past Lives slows things down into a yearning falsetto ballad.

The thread running through it all is the giddy, slightly dizzy rush of falling for someone, which makes the title feel like a perfect fit.

More than a decade on, Dopamine still sounds like sunlight pouring through a car window on the first warm day of the year. On vinyl, those layered vocals and shimmering keyboards get all the room they need to glow.