Lord Of The Isles - In Waves
The fog is rolling in onto the stony shore of an unloved pebbled beach. It swallows certain frequencies like snow, giving extra body to those bouncing back with a glinting, gated echo.
As they build, sounds solidify, gain take hold and fill their new surroundings with confidence and clarity. This isn’t a stroll through a soundscape, this is a ride. And that’s just the first two minutes of “Airgoid Meall” the opening track of the debut album, In Waves, by Neil McDonald, otherwise known as Lord of the Isles. As anyone on more than nodding terms with his output will be aware, the producer is capable of staggering emotional depth and a towering command of tone. In Waves is no exception, but what it does manage to do, over the course of its 15 tracks, is to maintain a consistency of imagination and a purity of vision without ever sacrificing the individual character of the songs.
There’s something in the palette of sounds that MacDonald employs that assists the process, of course, but the main strength thoughout In Waves is the writing, and that’s what makes the difference. This is a work that’s been properly authored, considered and produced with no consideration to anything other than itself. |
The album possesses a stunning and solid musicality that sets it apart from many of its peers. Melodies drift in and complete themselves with a satisfying sense of the structures underpinning them. You can never see the working out, but you know it’s there, like paint covering the sketches that first guided the brush. So we have beautifully textured landscapes of “Liobasta”, “Obar Lìobhaite” and “Expansions”, grounding us amid the less terrestrial atmospheres, including the interlude “Gualainn” which, with its snatched, field-recording feel and haunting piano, has the sense of something private, something lost, that we are privy to.
From this point on, there is a definite shift. We’re still in the same vehicle, but we’re travelling with a different purpose and at greater velocity. “Offline” is a pure, stone-cold classic, and should, if there’s any justice, be huge. McDonald’s gift for simple melody is stripped back to basics and married to a decades-broad producer’s nous. Part of me shies away from asking you, dear reader, to imagine the synth-sound from Hypnotone’s remix of “Cascades”, married to a deep house reimagining of “Get Lucky”, but there it is. Be assured though – it’s about a million times better than the sum of its parts. |
Other highlights include the Larry heard-esque bass-driven “Gravity Waves”, which goes deep, but never loses sight of the surface, and the onomatopoeic tweaked bleeps of “Skylark” which hover high above its tilting, terrestrial tether. But to pick out particular moments is really to ignore the towering achievement of this collection, which is its cohesion, the architectural grandeur of the whole. It may be late in the day, but this is a very real contender for album of the year.
'In Waves' hits record stores on the 14th November
Barney Harsent
'In Waves' hits record stores on the 14th November
Barney Harsent