The Scottish composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist’s fifth album is timeless, romantic, clever, lush, piano-based orchestral pop with serenely beautiful chord changes and melodies, with heartache on the pain-pleasure axis expressed in the most delicious, old-fashioned form. Duncan’s high, whispery voice captures a sensitive vulnerability, from the opener title track and throughout, with its sublime melody and that gentle irony that “It's only a love song / But it ain't half as good as you.” Think About It is another standout, about overthinking things and indecision, while Delirium is another melodically soaring, cinematic track capturing the overwhelming dizzying feeling of love: “The world is swirling wildly / But what can you do to hold it down?” Triste Clair De Lune could belong to a stylish soft-focus 70s French romantic film, Worry has a floating, dream-like quality with piano ripples and spacious sound, Sadness moves through a sequence of minor chords in melancholic hue, and after a brief, old-school reprise of the title track, Time And Again is a ghostly, swooning, wistful curtain closer. Like a snow globe of glistening beauty, an album of class and charming, classic, retro panache. Out on Bella Union.
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