E PLURIBUS M ROSS

Like some kind of time-hopping wizard with preternatural melodic sensibilities, M Ross Perkins is back with his sophomore full-length, E Pluribus M Ross. The album, his first for Colemine/Karma Chief Records, is another masterclass in home recording with 12 shimmering slices of purely perfect psychedelic pop.??Perkins fittingly had music journalists in a tizzy when he released his critically acclaimed self-titled full-length on Sofaburn Records in 2016. Record Collector called it "a truly great album filled with late '60s and early '70s pop goodness," while High Times praised it as "the kind of good old-fashioned psychedelic-tinged rock & roll that the world could use right now." Shindig upped the praise, calling Perkins' music "the perfect percolated distillation of Nilsson and Emitt Rhodes, one minute SoCal harmony pop inspired by the Fabs' trippy era, the next Merseybeat, and often silly, but biographical, like Harry at his best." ??The critics are right to praise the Ohio-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who conjures up his distinctively imaginative recordings all alone in his home studio. However, one would be missing the point to simply portray Perkins as a man lost in the past. The music of this unique artist is undeniably steeped in the indelible melodic hooks and laidback rhythms of the psychedelic '60s, but he's no copycat.??In describing Perkins, it's not wrong to namecheck Rhodes and Nilsson, but you have to expand that list of influences to include pop-rock visionaries like Brian Wilson, Colin Blunstone, and even John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Let's also throw in the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Kinks as well. Perkins clearly learned plenty of helpful tips from these and other legends that made the late 1960s and early 1970s such a magical musical time, but he has charted his own singular path from the past and back again.