andrew coleman - demons
this has been out a while now, but i have been a bad man, and slept on this. the reason being, the first time i played it the album hardly registered, and in my desire for riff heavy noise i cast this quiet album aside to gather dust. this week though, times have changed, a parcel through the letterbox made me revisit the album to see if it made more sense now that the weather is grey and autumnal ,and i now have an urge for sonic calm.
despite having been previously associated with the beat heavy ninjatune label (there is a fair bit about there releases spread over this site!), as animals on wheels, i didn't expect such a quiet album. space is of the essence throughout the 30 or so minutes, sometimes there are guitars strummed, sometimes there may even be a piano being manhandled, but, there is rarely anything as obvious as a melody. the noises are on first listen random, but with each exposure a certain creaky charm begins to permeate the listeners consciousness. for example, during 'downpour' the real world connection with the grandfather clock tick tock gives way to all manner of gentle static before a very faraway ambience begins to focus the attention, so that when the piano notes begin to come to the fore in a more dramatic manner it genuinely makes you jump out of your seat.
across the 5 tracks, there is little in the way of any stylistic variety, background noises are caressed, acoustic guitars are plucked with an excess of reverb and echo making the album pass by with welcome ease for when you want to avoid anything with a pounding 4/4 beat.