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The inexplicably hard-to-google Philadelphia band @ return with their latest album, Autosmile, an incredibly understated record of heartbreaking psychedelic folk that inhabits your speakers like a butterfly on a summer’s day.

“Heartbreaking psychedelic folk that inhabits your speakers like a butterfly on a summer’s day.”
— Marq Sutton, NottsRocks

Built on picked guitars and harmonies that gel to dizzying effect, duo Stone Filipczak and Victoria Rose have crafted eleven songs of subtle elegance, bringing new meaning to the phrase “less is more”. Instruments flit in and out, flirting with the idea of joining the compositions, then leave having teased you while still making their mark. A flute, bass or strings might elevate a song as they enter, only to leave just as quickly, but that brief time means more than if they’d outstayed their welcome. It takes a certain magic to show this much restraint, and in other hands it probably wouldn’t be as impactful as it is here.

On the centrepiece and title track, ‘Autosmile’, Rose multi-tracks her vocals, and it’s easy to hear that she cut her teeth singing in choirs. At nearly seven minutes, it still flies by. There are layers, but they’re ghostly, haunting sections only when they need to: a fleeting audio glimpse, a special interaction both beautiful and beguiling.

What starts as a laid-back rumination stays that way throughout, and that is where this record hides its many strengths.

@ tour the UK from 11 to 19 November. Autosmile is out now on 4AD.