Littlefolk
Label: We Are Busy Bodies
Genre: Best of 2023, Electronic, Record of the Week
$36.99
Availability: In stock
Mount Maxwell returns with another full-length journey into memory, melody, and geography – this time roaming beyond the BC environs of his previous records into a stranger, less knowable country. While still woozily nostalgic in the vein of Only Children and The People‚Äôs Forest, this outing feels more exploratory and wide ranging in scope, with a denser mixture of influences at play. The somnambulistic drift of Sea of Milk sets the stage with a series of wavering synth pulses that push us languidly toward land, eventually setting us down on the sands of Maze Crete, where a shadowy latticework of hand drums, flutes and synths await. From there we ascend to the aptly named Sky Eye, a rolling mixture of acoustic beats and analog string machines that gives us our first bird‚Äôs eye view of the album‚Äôs landscape. A Long Road pushes the acoustic instrumentation further, with shimmering tambourine marking time for a collection of hand drums and shakers, while Ages summons up an occult-like dream of glacial arpeggios and whispering synths. Slow Moves and Tree Motion float effortlessly along on beds of lazy congas and woodblocks before finally giving way to the title track – a heady juggernaut of distorted synths and trundling rhythms that propels us through the album‚Äôs second half like a locomotive through darkening hills. Drawing the record to a close, the gently repeating keyboard phrase of Mist blooms unexpectedly into a rainbow of human voices before evaporating into the oceanic swells of Hi Traveller. And there Littlefolk leaves us as it found us; adrift in a rolling sea.