Songs about scenes, whether celebratory or critical, are a bit too closed to really hit home with those of us for whom a trip out is a rarity.
Chicken Feed – Out of My Boxes
(de-fence records)
Songs about scenes, whether celebratory or critical, are a bit too closed to really hit home with those of us for whom a trip out is a rarity. So opening with a hollering sneer at the fashionable gets any record off to something of a limp start – who’s to care? But as things go on this offering from Chicken Feed gets stronger. The collage of beats, sample melodies and changing stuttering tempos is carried forward into some more expansive ambient tunes. It’s itchy and unsettled, but still often pleasingly laid back stuff, most successful when resisting the trap of trying to do too much or chuck in one trick too many – Profit & Loss in particular overdoes it. But Napier’s slightly metallic acoustic guitar is pure folktronic ambience, as is the more sparkling Duck Egg Diner. Flowers adorns this template with the sort of spoken word account of the every day relationship familiar from Arab Strap or James Yorkston (who he’s remixed in the past). So while not everything here really grabs the attention or impresses, there’s still plenty to pull you in. And when it hits its stride – in that folktronic mid-section and closer, in the beautiful ebbs and flows of Rose Garden, and in the harsher Art of Noiseisms of Gusher – it’s pretty much on the money and something of a laid back treat
Words: Matt Hopkinson (courtesy of SoundsXp)