Set in a town that perpetually runs at full speed, J. Allen’s ‘Wonder City’ builds slowly and focuses closely on single moments, enrapturing the listener with large scale washes of melody as it deconstructs a profound loneliness. His heartbreaking bedroom epics observe New York City from just outside of its whirlwind. His impressionistic arrangements use the city’s hums and whooshes as a soundscape upon which to layer songs of solitude and reflection, dreams and distraction.