Artist:     Yum-Yum

Album:     Dan Loves Patti

Label:     Omnivore Recordings

Release Date:     11.2.18

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Context matters, especially when reassessing the overlooked 1998 masterpiece Dan Loves Patti, a great flood of arresting, lovelorn chamber-pop and shoegazing indie-rock ecstasy. The story of how it seemed to disappear into the ether is a familiar one with a twist, with blame placed squarely on record company machinations and almost criminal neglect with regard to promotion.

Omnivore Recordings’ extraordinary reissue of Dan Loves Patti offers a fresh perspective on an album of rare, mellifluous wonder. Written and recorded during a devastating break-up, with its starry-eyed author Chris Holmes assuming the name Yum-Yum in tribute to bubblegum heroes such as The Archies and the 1910 Fruitgum Company, its hushed, layered vocals convey lyrics of beautiful, bruised emotions and shy, hopeful romanticism. And they ride artfully arranged, interwoven strings, generous acoustic strumming, keyboard whorls and surging electric guitars crackling with distortion static and fuzz—the oaken “Apiary” and its dramatic, shifting dynamics a perfect distillation of those disparate elements, although the lush “Jealous of the Stars” is even more affecting. All of which makes a rapturous, bittersweet symphony of Dan Loves Patti, with apologies to The Verve.

Somehow, Holmes’ lovely creation unwittingly and unfairly became the subject of controversy, stirred up by an infamous magazine essay on the commercialization and fraudulence of alternative-rock. It led many to question Holmes’ artistic sincerity. Angry critics came out of the woodwork with their pitchforks and torches to besmirch his reputation. Whet Moser of the Chicago Reader called the uproar “a remarkable class-baiting shit fest”—and that’s being kind. Even a cursory listen suggests that, if anything, Dan Loves Patti remains a pure, genuine expression of Holmes’ infatuation with AM radio and obsession with love and all its splendor, as the sweeping, melancholic pleasures of “Ring,” reminiscent of early Bee Gees’ swoons, as is the breathtaking “Train of Thought,” are blown away by the delightfully fizzy “Doot-Doot” and the ecstatic overdrive of “Sister.”

Coming down from climbing the wounded Mellotron spirals of “I’m Not Telling” and the stirring, pop-rock high of “Uneasy,” a well-chosen bounty of bonus materials awaits on solid ground. Brilliant demos such as “Summertime,” twinkling in spacious, airy twilight, and “I Took Advantage of the Spring,” an overwhelming rush of pretty hooks and transcendent melody that could make any aching heart burst wide open, are simply captivating, having arrived fully formed and mature. A narcotic, electro-pop reimagining of Prince’s “When You Were Mine” is found among a small cache of B-side covers, which include a soft, sentimental walk through “Rainbow Connection” from “The Muppet Movie” and a version of The Ronettes’ “Baby, I Love You” caked in the kind of hypnotic, sugary noise the Jesus and Mary Chain made famous.

Aged in-studio photos breed feelings of nostalgia and well-written, all-encompassing liner notes from former MTV Executive Vice President Erik Flannigan shed light on Holmes’ musical transformation, his influences and his crushing disappointments—the kerfuffle over his motivations is discussed in detail, as is the significance of the flowery cover’s battered guitar—in a pleasing package Dan Loves Patti so richly deserves. As does Holmes, who’s served as Paul McCartney’s touring DJ for the past nine years. Maybe they should do a record together.

—Peter Lindblad