Lo-Fi Melancholia for Kids – Because, everyone is wrong about everything all the time

Scotland’s experimental undercurrents have never been short of strange brilliance, but Because, everyone is wrong about everything all the time, the debut full-length from Lo-Fi Melancholia for Kids (LFMFK), finds a way to thread that well-worn seam with a needle dipped in something entirely new. The man behind the moniker, Adam O’Sullivan, is no stranger to sonic trickery. His past work with Japan Review was already pricking up ears with its gauzy textures and spectral edges, but this latest venture pushes even further into leftfield territory. Here, O’Sullivan doesn’t just blur genre lines — he wanders off the page entirely, and the result is a treasure map that’s half-smeared in noise, half-glowing in neon.

From the outset, LFMFK strikes a deeply personal tone without ever tipping into the confessional. It’s an album built on contradictions — hazy yet focused, melancholic yet playfully weird, fractured but utterly danceable — and it carries the sort of experimental pop sensibility that owes a debt to the likes of The Notwist and Broadcast, while still sounding stubbornly like its own thing. It’s not trying to impress you; it’s just trying to get something across before it disappears in a puff of drum-machine smoke.

Let’s dive in and go track by track.

Opener ‘Energetic Midfield Player’ kicks things off like a clunky Casio waking up in the middle of a lucid dream. There’s something almost comic in its title, but what unfolds is a murky, hyper-melodic loopfest. Skittering percussion that feels like it’s about to fall apart at any moment, propped up by scuzzy guitar that towers over the mix. O’Sullivan layers glitchy fragments like he’s scoring a crumbling VHS memory of a lost Strokes track. There’s a warmth in the wooziness, and the track sets the tone perfectly: this is music made by a human being for other slightly-broken human beings.

With ‘The Dark Outside’, things shift towards something more atmospheric, edging into ambient-pop territory.  The intro vocals are ghosted in, distant and spectral, never quite letting you in but inviting you to hover just outside the window. When the drums come in there’s an emotional core that feels quietly devastating. It’s not so much sad as it is overwhelmed, capturing that late-night loneliness when your own thoughts are too loud.

‘The Arrow’ injects a jolt of energy back into the mix. It’s twitchy and fragmented, hopping between ideas like it’s trying on jackets in a vintage shop. There’s a tactile quality to the production — drum machines clatter like toy robots on linoleum floors, while rubbery synth lines swoop in and out like startled birds. It’s a burst of anxious energy that vanishes just as you start to dance along.

Up next ‘Smog’ trades the album’s scattershot energy for something far more stripped back. An open, slow-burning meditation built around acoustic guitar, whispery vocals, and a soft undercurrent of droning synth. There’s an almost eerie stillness to it, like stepping into a quiet room after leaving a chaotic street. The guitar loops gently, hypnotically, while Adam’s voice hovers just above a whisper — cracked, close-miked and half-swallowed, like it’s unsure whether it wants to be heard at all. It’s intimate to the point of discomfort, but beautiful in its restraint. It’s one of the most vulnerable pieces on the record, quietly devastating in its simplicity, and it lingers long after it’s gone.

As its title suggests, ‘Isolate’ strips things back. It opens with a tinny, clattering drum machine and jangly guitars that feel like they’ve been left out in the rain — brittle, chiming, and just slightly out of sync. There’s a lo-fi tension from the start, a feeling that everything is holding itself together with frayed tape. Adam’s vocals come through washed in distortion, not quite buried but definitely blurred — a voice pushed through a busted amp, more texture than lyric. As the track progresses, a pulsing bassline begins to assert itself underneath, grounding the shimmer in something darker and more determined. Guitars start to clang and clash, turning from jangle to something harsher, more metallic. The whole song gradually mutates into a hypnotic, propulsive march, like it’s gathering static and weight with every passing bar. What begins as a fragile bedroom recording morphs into something much more forceful and unrelenting. It’s a stunning shift — subtle at first, but by the time it peaks, you’re completely caught in its momentum. ‘Isolate’ captures a very specific kind of emotional drift

Possibly the album’s most cinematic moment, ‘Under Green Discount Light’ feels like a detour into haunted supermarket dream pop. The textures here are lush, smeared with synth pads and static crackle, and the track unfolds slowly, like someone watching their youth play out on a security monitor. O’Sullivan taps into a sense of cultural detritus. Discount culture, old advertising aesthetics, half-remembered slogans and somehow turns it into something beautiful. It’s both nostalgic and alien, a lost signal from a world that never quite existed.

‘Ragland’ pares things right back to their emotional core. Gone are the glitches and clatter — in their place is a lo-fi piano that sounds like it’s being played in an abandoned room, half-lit and dust-coated. Each note feels fragile, deliberate, and deeply human, as though it might fall apart if pressed any harder. An organ hums gently underneath, woozy and warm, like the last rays of sunlight creeping through a window at the end of the day. The vocals are drenched in reverb, ghostlike and soft, more felt than clearly heard. They drift across the track like distant thoughts, lost in the mix but never aimless. There’s a real sense of space here — not emptiness, but intimacy. You’re placed inside the song, close enough to hear the fingers lift from keys, close enough to feel the air shift when the chords change. I absolutely love this track.

Closer ‘Spare Century’ is the album’s quiet exit. Built around a gently played acoustic guitar, it unfolds at an unhurried pace, each note given space to breathe. Over the top, a fuzz-drenched lead guitar drips out single, deliberate notes. Slow and mournful, almost like it’s remembering a melody rather than playing it. The contrast between the clean acoustic and the scorched electric creates a beautiful tension, tender and raw at once. A lo-fi organ floats just beneath, barely rising above a hum, but it gives the track a quiet warmth. There are no drums, no rhythm section, just a feeling of time stretching out and dissolving. It’s an anti-anthem, a song that refuses resolution, content instead to drift slowly toward silence.

There’s something very special about Because, everyone is wrong about everything all the time. It’s not just that it’s a strong debut, it’s the way it invites you to peer into its strange and beautiful mess without ever holding your hand. O’Sullivan has managed to fuse the scrappy charm of lo-fi indie with the expansive curiosity of electronic exploration, and he’s done it with a wink rather than a sermon. At a time when so much music feels pre-polished and algorithmic, LFMFK offers something looser, weirder, and far more alive. This is the sound of someone throwing sonic ideas at the wall not to impress, but to see what kind of shadows they cast when the light hits just right.

Because, everyone is wrong about everything all the time is out now via Astrodice Records and is available to download or on cassette from the Lo-Fi Melancholia for Kids Bandcamp page.

You can follow Lo-Fi Melancholia for Kids on social media here…

• Astrodice Records Substack
• Bandcamp