Grasscut: Everyone was a Bird | Album Review

Everyone was a Bird
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Artist: Grasscut
Genre: Electronic
Label: Lo Recordings

You can't get more quintessentially English than Grasscut, and you'd be hard pressed to come across better, more focused sound collages than what you'll find on Everyone was a Bird.

Composer/producer/ vocalist Andrew Phillips and manager/musician Marcus O’Dair (who wrote last year’s superb biography of Robert Wyatt) fuse themes, including identity, home, familiarity and ancestry, with an impressive if not immersive array of song, ambient textures and layered electronica.

Coming across like a mix of early Pink Floyd, classic Pet Shop Boys, Lemon Jelly, Nick Drake and extracts from the Bodleian Library catalogue, this is beautifully simple music – as much experimental as pop-oriented – with guest vocalists including Irish musicians Adrian Crowley and Seamus Fogarty.

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea

Tony Clayton-Lea is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in popular culture