Coy intrigue has always been part of the magic of Gunn’s music; he’s more likely to draw you in close than to blow your hair back. He emphasizes his most subtle qualities on Daylight Daylight, and the songs feel like they’re being played for the benefit of one person. Much of this is due to the way Gunn’s melodies dapple and drift in and out of shadow, a quality Elkington’s arrangements underscore. Isolate the acoustic-guitar clang in “Nearly There” and you might hear the opening chime of Primal Scream’s “Movin’ on Up.” Drop it back in among Elkington’s strings, which have the diffused beauty of sunlight seen through a squint, and they take on a disarming sweetness. So much of Daylight Daylight feels this way: majestic enough to fill a theater but contained and domestic. Listening to it can feel like staring into an expertly arranged terrarium; it’s remarkable how so much beauty can take up so little space.
Gunn takes obvious pleasure in crafting these miniatures. “Morning on K Road” was written after he spent a serendipitous afternoon with Hamish Kilgour of legendary New Zealand indie-rock legends the Clean shortly before his death in 2022. The pair, who had known one another in New York, ran into one another on the street in Auckland. Images of the day flicker through the lyrics like memories dissolving (“Painted leather jacket when you were crossing the street”) in the warmth of Gunn’s strumming and the downy bed of strings. From a plot perspective, nothing much happens; the pair mostly just walk around. But the song hangs with the crackling energy of unexpected pleasantry. “The morning felt special,” Gunn sings. “Like it was meant to be.”
Daylight Daylight is often shadowed by a feeling of finality. “Already the sky is singing/Already the bells are ringing,” Gunn sings in “Nearly There,” his voice reassuring as he ushers his beloved toward an afterlife. Dandelion puffs of woodwinds float in the amber light of “Another Fade” as Gunn picks out a casual, almost absentminded solo. It’s an off-handed moment, the kind you share with a friend so close you don’t have to say much when you’re together. “I feel the dream slip away,” Gunn sings, “And try to go back.”
