Inspired by the work of Robert Wyatt, early Eno, Berlin-era Bowie and Syd Barrett, this is intriguingly experimental, challenging but at times beautiful electronica work by the artist previously known as East India Youth. With the title taken from a quote by horticulturalist Monty Don about depression, it’s a strange mixture of petal and soil, stalk, perfume and grit, beginning with two gently synth-backed gorgeous songs, I Need To Keep You Bathed In My Life followed by And Everything Changed (But I Feel Alright), bathed in Doyle’s high, sensitive voice. After this, the territory changes, with the appropriately titled Somewhere Totally Else then Shadowtracking, both in far more abstract terroritry, each contrasting with the last. They are by the shimmeringly dreamy Who Cares. Nothing At All clicks nostalgically along with the sound a very early 80s basic midi synth, and the album continues downbeat electronica with Rainfalls, the gently bashing sounds of New Uncertainties and the synth harp sounds of St Giles Hill and the highly distorted and stark Semi-bionic. By now this very much feels like an album receding into obscurity, in contrast to the his far grander previous release, Your Wilderness Revisited. Nevertheless there is a oddball, eccentric likability to it all, with beautiful, wistful tunes escaping from a fragile sonic wreckage of this track. A Forgotten Film is darkly industrial, Theme From Muddy Time is a wall of electronica prog, ending with the bracketed afterthought [a sea of thoughts behind it], sinking obscurely back into the sands of sonic oddness. Strangely compelling but sometimes demanding, this is a rich soil of music wriggling. Out on Tough Love.
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