Simon Lord
Album: Stripes
Label: Wonderfulsound
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.wonderfulsound.com

Lord's debut, One, was one of those records you want to go into bat for. A wonderful aggregation of diverse influences, it made common cause with the outer reaches of a fine collection of records, found sounds and acoustic ephemera.

So it should be welcome news that Stripes continues in the same vein, distilling an ever-wider range of inspiration into a surprisingly compact and concentrated collection of songs. Infinity Pool trades soul-flecked acoustic chord structures with jazzy suspensions, a Caribbean steel band lilt and a Laurel Canyon vibe that continues into Dark Dark, which adds yé-yé stylings, a Motown bassline, a four-on-the-floor snare snap and the kind of instrumentation that could be from the soundtrack to an unfilmed episode of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries.

Palm Tree adds gently prosaic electronica to the mix, Fire Engines plays with time signatures to draw out a subtle pathos and the closing Meet You There somehow wraps it all up in a fittingly heartfelt finale.

The sound is warm and inviting, leisurely even… There's a nagging sense that it owes something to the original 80s sundowners like Sade and Working Week, as well as the folkier ends of more recent fare such as Morcheeba and the under-rated Noonday Underground, not to mention the more esoteric charms of John Schroeder and Ginsberg's personal cellist turned disco producer Arthur Russell.

Stripes is a record to tickle the mind and set it adrift downstream. It manages the disconcerting but admirable track of revealing slightly different things each time you play it.

Nick Churchill

www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk