Gentle, if unevenly grave lyrical troubadours are not traditionally associated with Warp Records. Quite the contrary, it’s often only the grittiest, edgiest and obscurest acts that survive the label’s incomparable roster of maverick talent. Not that this whimsical Bristol trio are without edge or attitude, just that you have to look for it well beneath the placid romanticism and gossamer fretwork of songwriter Nick Talbot. ‘Tunnels’ is a case in point; spectral, sinister organ sounds and spine-tingling guitar-sounds prevail at the heart of what is, superficially at least, a tender and pretty little retrospective. Talbot is well adept, however, at scraping away at the surface to reveal the dark and insidious ugly grey matter behind the pretty sketches of the soul. He’s patently more interested in the damage done to beauty, than he is in beauty itself and ‘Found Round The Figurehead’ and ‘Damage’ are a testament to his success in illustrating it.
Barely rising above a whisper, Talbot recalls a less acerbic, but no less phlegmatic Roy Harper, and though comparisons to Nick Drake are likely to flow freely you have to consider a more contemporary resonance in recent albums by Damien O and Kathryn Williams. The language whilst intensely lyrical and poetic and tangled in ivy-covered metaphors is anchored squarely in the new century: ‘I recall an autumn fire, a burnt out car the shutdown cinema’. It’s a cold and icy world Talbot, recalls, but it’s one we recognise, a world not unlike the festering geography depicted by Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker.
There are a few electronic devices, yes, but this is far from an electronic album by Warp standards. In fact it’s often little more than a muted pulse a solitary acoustic flat top for the most part with only the lightly skipping ‘Bluebeard’ offering anything by way of surprise and departure, but for this consistency alone it’s worth treasuring.
Anyway, previously released in a limited quantity on Silent Age Records, ‘Flashlight Sessions’ has been beautifully repackaged in high quality card cleeve with engravings by Will Schaff.
Check out the album player at WARP