Herald rating: * *
(Flying Nun)
Review: Russell Baillie
He's been a Clean-er, a Bat and a Magick Head, but now Robert Scott has decided to steer his long-running Flying Nun career solo - which means that on this collection Scott indulges his many and various current whims.
The strongest are the pastoral guitar-framed instrumentals reminiscent of both latterday Clean output and the solo efforts of David Kilgour, who plays second fiddle (actually piano and percussion and guitar) on five tracks.
Rather less convincing and often verging on the irksome are Scott's urges for burbling lo-fi electronic ditties of creative title (International Loss Adjuster for example).
Sometimes those elements meet a happy compromise, as on the grand shimmer of the title track, the gently undulating 2nd Hand Air. And so far as sort-of songs go, the mournful likes of Fog and Wind, The Wick Effect, and When Shade Was Made add some pleasant if unmemorable slices of the ol' verse-chorus.
It's occasionally engaging in its DIY musings, but ultimately it may prove more useful to the makers of monochrome short movies trying to find suitably nondescript soundtracks rather than to fans of Scott's past.
<i>Robert Scott:</I> The Creeping Unknown
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