I have two reviews in the latest Nightshift. This one was supposed to be for next month, but the editor asked for 200 words on deadline day to fill a gap, so in I went. It truly is a cracking EP, seek it out.
MID AIR – THERE'S A SON (self-release) Well, this is a gem. There’s A Son might tell of someone “tongue-tied and compromised” who fails to ever fully connect, but the song hits the emotive bullseye, with a lilting and cultured melancholy like the R.E.M. of “Sweetness Follows” - imagine the weepy emoji carved meticulously onto age-varnished mahogany and you might catch the elegantly misty-eyed impression. Barney Morse-Brown from Duotone adds cello, which is as near as one can get to a kitemark for sophisticated music in Oxford. The closely twined lead vocals hang suspended in an amniotic pool of soft synth and stately guitar, but “On a Distant Shore” gives their lush sound a clearer setting, atop an unhurried urbane countrified riff that’s a tasty double portion of classic Fleetwood Mac (hold the cocaine). “Corpse in the Copse” might look like Elf on the Shelf for baby goths, but it has a breezy folk darkness as if someone described Nick Cave's “Where The Wild Roses Grow” to All About Eve then pressed record. The tinkling piano might edge a step too far towards the paddock of prettiness on this one, but this debut EP is hugely promising overall.
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