Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
Showing posts with label Fraser McGowan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fraser McGowan. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
Monday, October 19, 2026
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Monday, November 7, 2022
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Caught In The Wake Forever - Waypoints
Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com
https://nomoreworkhorse.com/2019/06/26/caught-in-the-wake-forever-waypoints-album-review/
Monday, January 7, 2019
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
EP Review: Caught In The Wake Forever - All The Hurt That Hinders Home
Caught In The Wake Forever released this EP in 2011. It opens with Recorded With You In Mind, a slow, melancholic, sparse tune where different elements are added gradually, creating something of a symphonic effect. The rest of the EP is mostly in line with this: Fragments Turn To Dust opens with a scratchy guitar, Mount Batten Ferry adds piano to the recorded sounds of a Geiger counter. I Have Nothing Left To Give You and For Those Left Along The Way use a droning keyboard to frame the deftly plucked guitar and piano.
And when you tire of these, there are remixes of each track, which bring something new to the table in each instance. The standout of these is the Jonnie Common remix of I Have Nothing Left To Give You Anymore, which adds incongruous electronic effects. If you like ambient music, Fraser McGowan shows an inventive approach throughout this EP.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Album Review: Small Town Boredom - Notes From The Infirmary
Where Small Town Boredom's debut album featured 14 songs, their 2010 follow up is far more focused at six songs. Fraser McGowan's whispered lyrics on the slow-burning Song for Matthew Leonard leave little to the imagination ("they gave me Librium to mend my broken heart"), unfurling slowly and carefully. After the lush instrumental White Cart Water, they return to sparse, hushed folk with Black Cart Ways and the haunting Void Lighting.
The bleak World's Most Unwanted explodes with despair mid song, almost like a release of tension, with wordless cries and guitar distortion. But this is a rare moment of disquiet. Final track Moments for Denial has a beautifully picked acoustic guitar over a simple, electronic beat with minimalist vocals from McGowan, which works as well as anything else here. It's available from http://tromerecords.bandcamp.com/album/notes-from-the-infirmary
Friday, October 5, 2012
Album Review: Small Town Boredom – Autumn Might Have Hope
Small Town
Boredom is the bandname for Fraser McGowan and Colin Morrison from Scotland. They deal in a brand of downbeat, gentle
melancholia, framed by McGowan’s ‘delicate’ vocals.
The approach
is very much lo-fi, and very moody… the titles will give you a clue – Apologies
For Apathy, Sympathy For The Drowning, Understanding Blackness. At 14 tracks there is quite a lot to get
through here but there are some strong songs.
The gorgeous picked guitars of For Today I Missed The Dawn Break makes
it an early highlight. The Great Lodging
and Sympathy for the Drowning aim hard for the gutter, while other tracks like
the accordion-tinged Monday Night H.O.P.E. Group and the gentle duet Elder Park
& All That Followed are more reminiscent of miserabilists like Arab Strap
or Dakota Suite.
Many of the
other tracks are quite brief, featuring barely audible guitar and whispered
vocals (Another Coded Message, How I Learned To Love The Waterboys). The instrumental interludes are more
successful, with alluring guitar picking on William Summer’s Blues and On The
Crookston Line.
The album
could probably do with shades of light here and there to break the relentless
misery. So sad b**t**d music then, in a good way. It's available via bandcamp: http://tromerecords.bandcamp.com/album/autumn-might-have-hope
Friday, September 7, 2012
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