Ray Lynch – Deep Breakfast, 1984

A classic. Deep Breakfast was the first independently produced record to be certified gold (and later platinum) by the RIAA. Lynch is a classically trained guitarist and lutenist with a background in spirituality (the record’s title comes from a line in a book by controversial teacher Adi Da Samraj, under whom Lynch has studied: “You must be starved, old friend. Come into my apartments and we’ll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.”).

Deep Breakfast is meticulously produced and instantly likable from beginning to end, so much so that it’s a bit of an eye-roller. From what I understand it served as a new age gateway drug for hordes of listeners, but it’s unusually diverse for the genre. Opener “Celestial Soda Pop” is exactly what it sounds like: plump, bubbly, and candy-sweet with synthetic harp. “The Oh Of Pleasure” is sublime and sounds like what might have happened if Enya were more interested in electric guitar patches (you may recognize it from Grand Theft Auto IV). “Falling In The Garden” is ponderous and pastoral, whereas “Rhythm In The Pews” is unabashedly playful, almost naïve, with hyper-precious baroque-isms (this is one of several tracks in which Lynch’s classical background is most obvious). Closer “Tiny Geometries” is another favorite, with a Charles Cohen-esque shattered crystal introduction that unfolds into more familiar arpeggiations and eventually a searing new age epic. An excellent on-repeat record, and hard not to love.

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