This is a sleepy trippy beats thing with a decent soul vocalist. Andy Lovegrove brings style and some live musicians to a smooth backing track laid down by Zane Lowe (yeh, him) and Hamish Clark.
Somewhere in the genesis there seems to have been a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young moment where acoustic guitars, close harmony singing and a low down boogie shuffle ended up as track 3's "The Otherside". The retro influence of New Zealand must have played its part. But essentially it's a pretty conservative product, recorded, surprisingly, in Oxfordshire. Some tracks have the country rock tint, but quite a lot is electronica with vocals. The vocal harmonies are very sweetly done on the tracks where they appear.
My difficulty in responding to what I hear is in trying to visualise the audience and the context for the music. The songs have no real strength of conviction. An atmospheric calm is what defines the whole thing. So it could be background music for people too chilled out to even put a CD on. Close listening confirms the workmanship but reveals a lack of substance. There's no centre of gravity that I could draw you to. While "The Otherside" is recognisably a song, tracks like "Duet" and "Question of Freedom" spool by with sections of this and that. Rather like moving wallpaper in a slow motion chase scene. It’s desert, then a beach, then some palm trees. Noting much happens. The waves lap. Car tyres swish past on the coast road. The hammock comes to rest and we snooze happily in the warm evening sun. Somewhere a TV plays a rerun of a French detective film.
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So. It could be a soundtrack. An unobtrusive emotional support to sections of a slow film. Or even a background to an imaginary life of leisure and cool sophistication. BOARDS OF CANADA would do the job better of course, but they might distract attention and awake something more urgent. "The Sound Inside" sounds to me like a mild narcotic that could do with a little more caffeine. It could, of course, be exactly what you’re looking for.
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