LAUGHING STOCK

This album is staggering in it's beauty and complexicity.It continues where the previous the previous album,Spirit of Eden,leaves of but,on a higher level. The textures are the same but the arrangements are much more complex but those complexities are disguised by the overall, subdued atmosphere.

The album starts of with Myrrhman.An ambient classical arrangement in a Morton Subotnik meets Terry Riley style that pays homage to early 1970s Miles Davis. Ascention Day is a lazy summer's day drift of ambient washes with, again, a jazzy feel. After the Flood is astounding.Epic in proportion.A maelstom of swirling atmospherics with squalls of feedback guitar and laconicly dreamy vocals from Mark Hollis.The evocative Taphead slowly evoles from After the Flood,oozing like molasses before the listener has had time to realise that it's a new track.It is insidiously beautiful.New Grass was ,at the time of release,something new altogether.Barely audible vocals and guitar,similar in tome to Tim Buckley collaborator,Lee Underwood, it is surely the blueprint for all slow-core bands that followed.The album ends with Runeii.It ends the album like a parent creeping out of a room trying not to disturb a sleeping child.

This album is an overlooked,under-rated masterpiece.Hear it before you die!