To be without discernable shape or form would, you’d think, not be without its problems. But it can, as proven here by Le Loup’s assortment of musical resonances, still allow you to draw the most fascinating shapes. And in that sense it is the very embodiment of freedom in itself, which can have no form or constraint, lest it not actually be freedom rather just something with a bit of wiggle room. But we digress. The surely knowingly preposterously titled ‘The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations’ Millennium General Assembly’ is the debut record by oddly-wired multi-instrumentalist wunderkid Sam Simkoff. Live he requires about 7 further souls to realise his vision, which may surprise considering the disparately-populated soundscapes he crafts more or less alone here, reverberating around a vast reverb-heavy echo chamber. It is folk music, of sorts, if you squint and will it to be so – or a disenfranchised relative thereof.
Whenever you do detect the hint of shape and/or building momentum, as on the beautifully and delicately taut ‘Breathing Rapture’, it comes courtesy of minimal mandolin looping organically into a dusty snowball equivalent, or similar, gathering atmospheric shards as it rolls forwards. While the offerings here are almost uniformly abstract to the point that drawing direct comparisons is foolhardy, Animal Collective’s sense of impish adventure within the broad genre is worth a mention and many songs feel like an evaporating thought from the minds of TV On The Radio or Neutral Milk Hotel trapped like a butterfly in a net. ‘Le Loup (Fear Not)’ though, at the firmest end of their scale, is so tight and incessant beneath its malleable sheath that it reminds us of Clinic trapped in a bubble in some twee setting, perhaps being chased by finger puppets. We can call it a descendant of folk music at any rate. And fascinating, always fascinating.