Justin Sconza: Paint by Numbers

Justin Sconza’s EP Paint By Numbers is such a dreamy, weightless offering that it’s difficult to imagine this was made by an actual person, one who does mundane earthy things like drive, walk, and pay his cable bill. No, I don’t buy it; this “Justin Sconza” is not so much a man as he is a floating, ethereal presence who found a good deal on some recording equipment.

Whatever “Justin” is, it/he stole a few haunting piano tricks from Broken Spindles and coupled them with the type of psychedelic vocals practiced by John Lennon and George Harrison in the ’70s, creating a consistently appealing 18 minutes of music.

His songs are full of rippling echoes, as if recorded underwater. The piano circles back on itself, fading in and out and eventually spiraling away to nothing. And he knows his pop tricks, even if they are cloaked in hallucinatory production: these dreams come with melodies and beats.

Sconza is a member of the group Walter Meego, lauded more for funky dance pop than ghostly psychedelia. It’s easy to find the pulse of a talented pop band hidden beneath the haunting surface of Sconza’s songs. The Paint By Numbers EP is divided into seven tracks, some of them just a minute and change, and they all explore roughly the same mood; they could almost be alternate versions of the same song.

That might be a problem were this a full-length album, but at 18 minutes it feels like just a taste, enough to make you curious about his next project. He may be disembodied, but don’t call him out of touch.

- Tom Vale
Walter Meego (Brilliante Records)