The Photocopies - Counterintuition (2025)

Just when you think Sean Turner is finally slowing down, new work from The Photocopies pops up in our mailbox. With Counterintuition, he adds ten new songs to his already impressive discography (plus eight equally enjoyable bonus tracks, for those still unconvinced by his unbridled productivity). It all seems so easy, but what lies behind all those sugar-rush melodies?

The lyrics here suggest a world where personal lives and public forces collide: love persists amid boredom, fear, and precarity, while hope flickers stubbornly against systems that seem designed to grind people down. It fits the DIY approach, born from a lack of any budget, as nicely reflected in the title track: “Got a world full of nothing and I’m losing my way // Happens to me every time.”

All things considered, we listeners benefit: this combination of warm melodrama and charming energy with jangly riffs and earworm choruses is simply so enjoyable that we can’t, and won’t, ignore it.