I love surprises. And what a great surprise this record turned out to be. The opening track hear, about the most lush on the album, starts like gamelan, before a marimba kicks in and a high, sweet bass figure carries the tune into modest Harvest-era orchestration (is that hammer dulcimer on the second verse?). It sounds beautiful and then Andreya Triana starts singing and the song is transfigured. Her voice is smokey, swooning, a gentle rasp evaporating into the sweetest of falsettos. As a voice it would make a great whiskey.
The title track "Lost where I belong" is even better; starting with the warm crackle of faux surface noise it moves into a spare 90s percussive groove. Spare is the watchword on this record in fact. Simon "Bonobo" Greens production is not afraid of a large palette but the colour is used sparingly. This song features both brass and strings but they never swamp the sinuous, sensual central melody. This is crafty, grown-up, serious music. And I mean that in its least pejorative sense.
The single "Town called Obsolete" is a jittery kick drum and some haunted vocals, the simply strummed bass thickening like gravy on the chorus. "Darker than Blue" is a troubled blues with a niggling picked guitar line running through it, it's urgency contrasted beautifully with the leisurely pace whilst adding energy and feeling. Andreya's rich airy vocal shimmers like black ice on a bright winters morning; dangerous and beautiful. Its a fantastically realised performance. And when was the last time you heard a harmonium and whistling middle-eight on a soul record.
"Daydreamers" has the same disturbed somnolent quality with a dreamy falsetto, reminiscent of Beth Gibbon's Rustin Man collaboration. "Up in fire"' starts with flute, sax and tremolo guitar which fleetingly reminds me of Pharoah Sanders(!) That doesn't last and in fact, for me this is one of the less successful tracks on the album, straying as it does into the tasteful competency of dinner jazz. Andreya's voice transcends this of course, as it does on every track.
This is a gorgeous record; atmospheric, imaginative and beautifully produced. There is an assuredness, a rightness that dazzles. There is something amazing about this level of judgement. If my own aesthetic tendencies tend to celebrate the joy of glorious lapses of judgement or taste it is because I am a coward. It's reassuring to know people make mistakes. The basilisk glare of a record as good as this is terrifying. But it's a good terrifying.
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