The London trio of Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs returrn with an strange, dream-like, ambient ‘headphones’ release, one that hovers across their career as if perceived through rain-soaked glass, designed to capture the essence of the after-hours. Indeed the theme of rain persists throughout, curtains of it enveloping many songs, as Cracknell, in the opener, Settle In, variously narrates memories early adulthood with all its hopes, dreams and energies: “When you’re twenty or twenty-one you have so much belief… All roads lead to here.” Later, on When You Were Young, she sings, through an echo-chamber of ghostly piano, clarinet and synths about "sometimes you cry, not sure why, and time flies by”. Stylistically then, unlike the catchier pop of their Home Counties LP, this is a follow-up to their sampling-rich, more symphonic 2021 album, I’ve Been Trying To Tell You.
So while 1991’s breakthrough Foxbase Alpha leapt out with freshness, at a time when sampling still felt like a free-for-all, and bringing clever blend of electronica, dance music and pop, it was always also nostalgic. This album then seems like a semi-conscious hallucinatory memory, one of further layers of meta-nostalgia, a woozy sort of reprise album. It sets the scene with the opening track capturing sounds of a pub, laughter, a tinkering piano, then footsteps, all evoking the act of walking home and then putting on music with headphones, of falling half asleep, of being middle-aged look back at three-decade career. It’s generally slow, ponderous, though sometimes beautiful, with tracks such as Half Light, Through The Glass, Northern Counties East, No Rush, or Hear My Heart, it’s a glistening, ambient listen and an interesting concept, but is perhaps more of ghostly stocking filler for hardcore fans before perhaps their LP of catchier pop. Self-released / PIAS.
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