ROBIN JAMES - PAPER EARTH
(Pocket Size Records)

Here’s something very interesting.

Robin James recoded his second album in three days on analogue equipment, and while such digital ludditry is often to be sneered at, you really can feel the difference here. These slight, fragile songs benefit from the more organic recording technique, and feel strangely out of time. This is firmly in the tradition of reclusive eccentrics and introverted folk artists from Syd Barrett to Vashti Bunyan, with the stripped down minimalism of Mazzy Star and Iron and Wine, as James virtually whispers his way through songs of death, pain and misery.

Rarely featuring more than vocals and acoustic guitar, these intimate songs might finally be a little one-dimensional, but that’s a minor criticism; this is eerily beautiful, hauntingly personal and sometimes genuinely unnerving stuff, and well worth picking up.

DAVID FLINT

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