SCOTT4 - Works Project LP

(V2)

****

Reviewer: Russell Baillie

This second proper album after last year's enjoyable debut, the Recorded in State LP, sees the London outfit finding more warped inspiration in their selective magpie tendencies.

Here again they're mixing the supposedly uneasy bedfellows of lo-fi country twang and vintage electronica - the overall effect is akin to Elvis Costello's Almost Blue wandering down Kraftwerk's Autobahn. Which might sound all a bit arch and tongue-in-cheek if it wasn't for the uneasy emotional pull of the plaintive tunes of singer Scott Blixen on bent ballads like Das Junior and We Scratched Our Names among others.

Elsewhere, there's Scott4's variations on the hip-hop blues (Leftturn), many a Kraftwerk-referenced synthesiser throbathon (Scott4 travel on Electric Trains, We're Not Robots) and random outbursts of pedal steel-assisted country (7 Days).

Yep, welcome to tumbleweed techno country. It's weird round these parts here, but it works.