Also looming on an early May horizon, the debut solo release from Nathan Hall and the Sinister Locals. As said in previous dispatches, this delightfully magical four track set very much steers its navigational compass to a classic era Soft Hearted Scientists fayre, breezily adored in psychedelic eccentricity and sailing upon a stirring seafaring seasoning, aboard the mystical voyage to strange sonic lands, a passenger list amid whose pages are populated a roll call of ghostly crew drawn from a mid-80’s era XTC and a pressganged staffing of William D Drake, Syd Barrett and Cardiacs types. ‘the Volga Sturgeon Face’ EP collects together four tracks that flicker with fabled fancifulness and a pinching dash of 60’s musicality, it’s a set that opens to an oldie fairground orchestra, the jubilant pomp of ‘everybody’s burning effigies’ is the sound of the Zombies marooned in the kaleidoscopic surrealism of the Beatles’ Pepperland. Up next the bracing rush of harmony swelled rustic inclines tenderly serenades the lazy eyed ‘song for the flowers’ with a bitter sweetly ghosting of gospel toned campfire caressing of the type that might just have you minded to go in search of your prized copy of the Earlies debuting full length from a few years back. Centrepiece of the set in our humbled opinion is the previously mentioned ‘like a setting sun’, a wonderfully lightly sprayed pastoral pretty that tumbles playfully to a softly toned psych lilt straight from a ‘mummer’ era XTC songbook albeit as were pencilled in the margins by a ‘gigglegoo’ era Freed Unit. ‘Catacombs of Camden Town’ rallies matters out towards the end groove, inwardly reflective and ghosted by the haunting haze of fading memories, amid the beautified rustic ripples a hollowing sorrow scratches deep at its crushing core. Available via the hip replacement imprint.
