Kevin Bronson on November 13th, 2020

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Jason Blynn has been churning out pop-rock gold for years, first as part of Harper Blynn and its spinoff Mosco Rosco, then with Peter Harper in Motor Sales and also in his solo guise Yay Blynn.

Soff Serve is the latest vehicle for his effervescent songwriting, which over the course of his career has yielded collaborations with the likes of Elliphant, Rose Elinor Dougall, Sara Bareilles and Roofeeo (Buddy, TV on the Radio). It was basically an accident that the project, born in his garage studio, became a collaboration with musician-turned-photographer/filmmaker Max Knight.

“I was in between records with my band Motor Sales and had a bunch of extra songs I liked but hadn’t recorded,” Blynn explains. “I started in on them, playing all the instruments myself, getting the performances down, then smoking a joint and becoming the ‘mixer’ to add special sauce to the tracks.

“One day my friend Max came by. He liked the songs, we got to talking and I wondered, ‘How can you be involved with this?’ Max hadn’t toured or played much music since being on the road playing with Laura Marling, but had rather pursued a successful career in photography/film, shooting the cover for Mumford and Sons’ first record, as well as Ellie Goulding, Laura Marling and most recently Karen O and Danger Mouse. We decided on bass for Max. We started laying down the parts and his raw playing added tons of attitude to the tracks.”

The duo have made a five-song EP (formal release date, Dec. 4) — these are songs for when that moment the buzz starts to hit, or when you’re on a long road trip and want to switch it up from listening to Kurt Vile on the stereo.

The gently swaying single “Circus of Lies” is exemplary of the judiciously baked psych-pop songs on the EP, which Blynn says “deal with our current chaotic dance with late-stage capitalism, greed and the unraveling of our world as we have known it. These songs tangle with my disillusionment with our world, but also embrace love as the answer to our problems.”

Speaking of capitalism, the video (directed by Knight, of course) features the duo running amok on Glendale’s Brand Boulevard of Cars. Never believe the sticker price.

||| Watch: The video for “Circus of Lies”