There are the slow burners, which put a rope around your soul and pull slowly until you find yourself absorbed in something bigger than you are, without really understanding how the hell you got there. And there are the others, the ones that tug quickly on the rope so you feel like lightning has struck you in the gut, head, heart and anywhere else it grabs you. You still don't know how you got there: you just know you want to go back again, quickly.
This album from Barbican Estate is very much of the latter kind. While the opening track gave some notice of what was to come, I wasn't ready for the juggernaut that struck me on hearing the album's second track - Song For Derek - which you can hear in my Dandelion Radio show this month here. Then the rest of the album just engrossed me so that I've been listening to it every day since it arrived early last month,
Originally from Tokyo, Barbican Estate draw on a krautrock palette somewhat reminiscent of early Stereolab, an obvious reference point. Too obvious, actually, because the album takes you into so many places you won't want some idiot like me pinning something like that on them and misleading you. There's a breadth of vision at work here that begins to unravel with the third track, Atlas (hear it in my FSK show, which first aired today and can now be found here) and the glorious Uprising.
Among my albums of the year - no question. You can find Song For Derek here: the album won't be released till November so grab the previous in my shows while you wait.
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