They say opposites attract and this cliché seems to be borne out by the Cambridge-based couple behind Fuzzy Lights.
French-born guitarist Xavier is into noise and experimental rock while his wife, Rachel Watkins, is a classically trained violinist.
What started out as just these two in 2004 has since expanded into a five piece band but the sound retains a kind of grandiose intimacy.
This mini album contains five songs very roughly recorded December 2009 off a single ambient microphone. It essentially amounts to an official bootleg and is free to download off the label's website - presumably designed as a Christmas gift to their fans.
The very raw quality of these recordings does them no favours, however. The risk, here is that those , like yours truly, who haven't previously heard their two albums may judge them solely on the muddy quality of the five songs performed. This would be a pity since on listening to the originals of these songs I can hear that they are well crafted, atmospheric pieces. These qualities which are almost entirely lost in the live versions.
The longest, and best, track is Safe Place where the dramatic finale has the added advantage of drowning out all the background noise. On other songs the muffled sounds of the audience is an irritating distraction.
The full track list is :
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1.Obscura
2.Through Water
3.The Museum Song
4.Colour of the Sun
5.Safe Place
The first three tracks here are from 2010's Twin Feathers which was nominated as underground album of the month in Mojo. The remaining two come from their first album - A Distant Voice. The far superior studio version of Obscura was included on the Wire magazine's 'Wire Tapper' compilation CD.
BBC Radio 3's Late Junction presenter Verity Sharpe has described Fuzzy Lights as "the East of England's answer to Dirty Three" and other critics reel off names of their favourite post-rock bands, ideally ones which feature a violin prominently.
Unlike most of these bands, Fuzzy Lights include vocals on some of their songs although whatever profundities are contained in the lyric sheet tend to get buried in the mix.
The band are clearly making the right waves but, for the moment , I think they'd be well advised to steer clear of other live releases; at least until they can afford more microphones.
Fuzzy lights Online
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