Raf Rundell - O.M. Days (LP)

Raf Rundell has always been a big-hearted presence in British dance music, the kind of artist who can fold club warmth into everyday life. As one half of The 2 Bears with Joe Goddard, he helped seed a whole wave of feelgood house and Balearic pop in the past decade. O.M. Days, released on Heavenly Recordings in 2021, bottles that friendly glow and adds a more reflective edge. It is a proper second solo LP, not just a collection of ideas, and it plays like a long afternoon turning into evening, the mood shifting subtly track by track.

The title reads like a grin. Oh my days, that old London exclamation, is a neat fit for an album that deals in delight, surprise and the little stumbles that give a groove its personality. Rundell mostly keeps the tempos in an easy zone, more strut than sprint, which suits his conversational vocal style. He half sings, half chats, then lets a bassline or a synth phrase do the heavy lifting. It is music that trusts space. You hear it in the dubby corners he leaves open for delay and echo to bloom, and in the way choruses feel earned rather than engineered.

“Monsterpiece” is the calling card. It lopes in on a chunky low end, kicks up a cheeky hook, and lands on the right side of sly. There is a loose, summer-in-London wobble to it, the kind of tune you imagine rolling out of a Camden pub door in late arvo, pint glasses fogged, grins on faces. “Always Fly,” with Terri Walker on vocals, is the other obvious standout. Walker, a stalwart of UK soul, lends the track a clean, open-hearted lift. Her voice sits on a shuffling rhythm with an easy sway, and Rundell builds the arrangement around her presence rather than crowding it. It is generous, and it works.

What separates O.M. Days from a lot of feelgood dance-adjacent records is the songwriting. Rundell is not chasing big room payoffs. He is after tone, detail, a sense of place. You get bass that feels recorded to tape, soft-focus synth pads that bloom like sun on a brick wall, percussion that skitters without ever nagging. The palette is club-schooled, but the references lean wide. Street soul, lovers rock, a pinch of yacht, and a line of Balearic breeze run through it. If The 2 Bears were often about the collective whoop, this is about the private smile.

Rundell’s charm helps. He sounds like the bloke in the corner of the bar who knows every record in the jukebox and is happy to play you the right one. When he steps forward, the lyrics land as gentle prompts rather than manifestoes. Gratitude, friendship, keeping your head when the world feels cooked. There is no laboured theme, just a consistent human touch. On repeat listens the album starts to feel like a room you know. You start anticipating the way a hi hat might open, or a vocal ad lib might scoot across the stereo field, and that familiarity is part of the pleasure.

It is also a cracking listen on wax. The low end is rounded, the mids are warm, and those roomy delays breathe nicely at volume. If you are the type to trawl a Melbourne record store on a Saturday, drifting from reggae reissues to leftfield pop, O.M. Days slides right into that sweet spot. You could file it beside Hot Chip side projects, Roy Davis Jr, maybe a Cleaners From Venus oddity, and it would make sense. If you are searching for Raf Rundell vinyl or O.M. Days vinyl, it is one of those records that rewards a front-to-back spin rather than a playlist cherry pick.

Heavenly has form for this sort of thing, and O.M. Days sits comfortably in that catalogue. It has the label’s easy confidence, a trust in songs and in the long arc of a side. If you came in through The 2 Bears, you will hear the lineage, but you will also hear a solo voice that keeps getting surer. For anyone looking to buy Raf Rundell records online, this is the one to start with. It is also an easy recommendation for listeners who collect Raf Rundell albums on vinyl and want something that works just as well with a cup of tea as it does with a backyard speaker and a few mates.

Put simply, this is a record for real life. It sounds good on a cloudy Tuesday, it sounds better when the sun finally clocks off, and it might even help nudge a small get-together into a memory. If you are crate digging in vinyl records Australia bins and spot the Heavenly logo peeking out, grab it. You will soon be the person at the bar recommending it to someone else.