L.A. musician
Kosta Galanopoulos
named his solo project,
PWNT
, after the
Miles Davis
credo "Play what's not there," the title he bestows to his sophomore album. While the debut's oddball retro-pop combined '60s-infused psych-pop with lo-fi synth pop, jazzy lounge music, and more,
Play What's Not There
leans into a more authentic '60s and '70s vibe with its greater emphasis on acoustic instruments such as acoustic guitar, woodwinds, and piano. That's not to say the second album is exactly refined; recorded with
David Davis
(
Frank Ocean
,
the War on Drugs
), it's still a trippy, style-fusing sonic adventure, this time spanning vintage baroque pop, hazy folk-rock, and, on "Goodbye Forever," even a version of disco. That song pounds out a delay-heavy rhythm on piano before lighting things up with a funky bassline and fat snare tone under
Galanopoulos
' slinky falsetto. It ends with a funk guitar battle. More typical of the record, though, are warmer entries like the hazy, Laurel Canyon-esque "From Me to You" (replete with harpsichord and a fever-dream sax solo), the like-minded "Clouds" (instead with chimes, a sunshine-pop choir, and what sounds like a Cold War-era spaceship motor), the soul-injected "Never So Bad," and album highlight "Lonely," a hooky psych-pop ditty in the tradition of
John Lennon
and
Foxygen
. Landing closer to outlier status on the album's colorful spectrum is "After Four," an earnest outing featuring vocals by
LaCore
that manages to combine
Henry Mancini
Prefab Sprout
, and an evocative '70s soft rock. Never entirely earnest, though, to end the record,
follows "Summer Rain" with a "Clouds" reprise, whose ramped-up, four-on-the-floor-accompanied
Beatles
psychedelia and repeated "Floating on a cloudy day" take the album out on a festival high. ~ Marcy Donelson