Talkdemonic

OK – someone is taking the mickey. Labelled as 'Folktronic Hop’ by the band themselves and made by two natives of Portland Oregon, this is one of the most beautiful, eclectic, inventive, original, enlivening and generally sublime albums this reviewer has heard this year – and this in a year that includes releases by Half Cousin, Bone Box, Green Arrows and Lau. I cannot be lucky enough to have received this for review as well!

Dropping down from the superlatives, Kevin O’Connor - drums, synths, pianos, programming beats, bass, accordion, banjo, guitar, rhodes, wurlitzer – and Lisa Molinaro – Synths and Violas - seem to be capable of making music from virtually whatever source is available and using it to create visions in sound that are almost three dimensional in texture. Their use of Viola and violin to open the album with a virtual drone is pastoral and creates a general calming – but without the chill-out that might be associated with it, rather the listener is being set up for a journey through an aural landscape that could b anywhere in the world. Close your eyes and as the music moves through strings into synths and even some urgent drum 'n’ banjo you can 'see’ the dappling of the bark on the trees and 'feel’ the whispers of the breeze against your skin – there are visits from the creatures of the woods as well as elements playing with you .

If you crossed Half Cousin with Boards of Canada you would approach the sound – except that both the aforementioned bands are quintessentially Scottish – but it couldn’t describe the images that this album throws up by its combination of electronica and acoustic instruments.

There is great variety in the tracks here but there is also a pattern to the ebb and flow of the music and even when there is discordance is suffices only to throw the flow and beauty into relief.

I think I have been blessed.