Rick Senley’s on a roll now. After a number of years and a brace of albums apiece as I Am A Man With a St Tropez Tan and Music For Voyeurs, he’s scored himself a US deal for an EP release – and this is that EP.
This five-track release contains what is conceivably Senley’s best output to date. Moving effortlessly between moods, it’s subtle and textured, and superbly executed and produced. At once sparse yet deep, the set transitions between moments that are dark and unsettling and moments of choking beauty. The lone piano that begins ‘Play One Note Man’ before strings swoop and soar, is poised and elegant, before a chorus of sampled voices shatter the calm. Yes, Senley knows all about juxtaposition, and has really mastered it here.
The haunting ‘I Knew It Was Love’ features a narrative delivered in a heavy Scots brogue that I’ve been struggling to place for a fortnight now, and the set is concluded by the brooding ‘Colliding Lovers’, which is atmospheric and by turns chilling and melancholy.
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It’s not only an extremely accomplished work, but also an extremely cohesive work, that successfully marries together a host of contrasting and seemingly conflicting elements without loss of focus and really does defy genre categorisation, being nothing more and nothing less than great, powerful music.
Everything is Chemical Online
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