The Lost Art
Album: The Lost Art
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.thelostartduo.com/

The first thing you notice about The Lost Art's self-titled debut album is how perfectly matched the voices of Gordo Francis and Greg Hooper are. The first track of the album, 'Equals', opens with the two unaccompanied voices singing in dreamy close harmony. This sound is eventually supported by an off-beat guitar, followed quickly by a lush strings arrangement. The musical texture behind the vocals is constantly changing giving a real sense of a developing and evolving musical landscape and creates a sound that is, at the same time, satisfyingly complex and refreshingly original.

Gordo Francis and Greg Hooper are both classically-trained music teachers and clearly have broad musical interests. This is evident in the wide range of musical influences that permeate their songs.

There's a strong jazz influence in 'The Passage', a song that also gives Judith Hooper's violin a more prominent airing. The foot-tapping 'Kicking the Habit' matches some fairly bleak, but witty, lyrics with Freddie Mercury-like vocals to create a kind of Stephen Sondheim meets Queen arrangement. In fact, there's an echo of Broadway running through many of the songs on this CD.

My favourite of the eight songs on this diverse album is 'High and Mighty', a dark song of alienation which sounds as though it is being sung to the backing of a Rachmaninov piano concerto.

Throughout the album, the tracks are superbly orchestrated; providing a rich carpet of sound as a unique setting for each song. There's an overall wistfulness to the album which invokes a warm summer's afternoon; an especially welcome sound on a cold February evening.

My only criticism of this otherwise fascinating album is the final track, 'Distant Friends'. This is perhaps the least engaging song on the album and, to my mind, finishes the album on a slightly flat note.

I suspect that The Lost Art may suffer commercially from not slotting neatly into a particular musical genre but this does the band a huge disservice. For all its derivations, this is truly original music and deserves to be recognised. Let's hope The Lost Art is soon rediscovered.

Tim Goodwin