Like the blood orange dawn on a hot July morning, “Across The Room” by Luke Reed represents some of the finer points of psychy summer pop with a light touch.

The interplay of clean, jangly six-string and tube-driven distortion quickly establishes an airy atmosphere within moments. With tambourines and snappy drums kicking against one another, and the half-hummed “bah-bah bum-bum” of Reed’s chorus refrain, the whole production has a sort of tongue-in-cheek bubblegum feel that is both self-aware and refreshing.

Cheerful humming aside, the nature of the vocal work plays into the nuanced sound of “Across The Room”: layering his vocals, Reed gets a smooth sheen that is at once assuring, and yet hints to emotionally complex undertones. Even the content of the song’s namesake is more nuanced than at first glance—is the narrator asking their companion to walk across the room to join them, or give them the space needed to leave them be? The answer’s hidden somewhere in the fuzzy jangle of the tune, and fortunately, we have the benefit of the rest of summer to listen, and find it.