It’s perhaps a little unwarranted to focus fi rst on a single cameo when Starless’ debut contains so many guests, but the news that The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan makes his fi rst appearance on a recording since 2012 will be worth prioritising. After all, with The Blue Nile on hold, Buchanan’s become increasingly reclusive – and he was never that active anyway – so every appearance the honey-voiced Scot makes is worth celebrating. Buchanan shows up on this project – put together, over a lengthy gestation period, by Love & Money’s Paul McGeechan – singing on the title track, and, as you’d expect, offers a devastatingly soulful performance, singing mournfully of “a starless sky, one shutdown moon” and a “city in which we fall in love too soon”, abetted by an expanded string section swirling around as though arranged by Craig Armstrong.
It’s a mood that McGeechan maintains throughout an album that champions Scotland’s more lavish musical tendencies. Alongside Buchanan you’ll also fi nd Chris Thomson from the perennially underrated, Glaswegian band The Bathers. His throaty, Van Morrison delivery rises in perfect synch with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on Misty Nights, while Gaelic language folksinger Julie Fowlis pops up on DúThaich MhicAoidh, and she also joins Karen Matheson of Capercaillie on the turbulent, climactic The Surge Of The Sea. But, though McGeechan’s album is – at least within Scotland’s boundaries – hardly ‘starless’, he also makes room for lesser-known singers. Marie Claire Lee, for instance, lends her Dolores O’Riordan stylings to Whispered Reason No. 2 and Solitude, the latter of which, with its stuttering, programmed beats, recalls Massive Attack’s Mezzanine. Kaela Rowan provides a lilting melody to Apocalypse and the earnest closer Jura, while guitarist/folk singer Andrew White offers his wonderfully husky, Peter Gabriel voice to Within These Walls. Admittedly, McGeechan’s string-heavy arrangements occasionally prove a little overegged, even formulaic, but such ambitious elegance is frequently to be applauded. Starless, one might even argue, is a stellar endeavour.
0 comments:
Post a Comment