NEWS
Losing Today review "This is your day"
Posted: 27/07/2005
Uncle Black ‘This is your day’ (Backwater). If there was a Losing Today award for persistence in the face adversity then Uncle Black’s Les King would have won it hands down for this particular missive, somehow due to one reason or another we’ve managed to ‘avoid’ this release and not, I hasten to add, have any of these happenings had anything to do with us (or Uncle Black we should say). This release comes from the same label that have in recent months brought us some corking outings from Jamie Clements, Mike Summers and the awesome Future Kings of England and keeping with that fine tradition now we have Uncle Black to add to the list. Essentially duo Les King and Michael Aldridge who judging by these four cuts still dream of a time gone past when songs were songs free from need of generic tags, just honest, timeless emotive storytelling none more so is this apparent than on the sapping but gem like ‘Clock Prison’. Almost hymnal in texture and keeping the obvious Cambridge folk pop references aside for one second, fans of the likes of Low, early days Hidden Cameras and Death Cab for Cutie (but most of all a distant cousin of Teardrops ‘Tiny Children’) may well find a welcoming safe haven because within these finely layered grooves the dusted origins of deep as you like fragile as can be solace that’s measured with just the right reverential pace to leave you breathlessly begging for more. Then there’s the slowly unfurling incantation of the numbingly beautiful though delicately eerie ‘Was I a boy?’ as it, as if tempered by an agile slight of hand, hooks you in to be caressed by its almost invisible Gallic aura. ‘This is your day’ perhaps the perkiest track here is cut from the same simplistic up beat catchiness as made Belle and Sebastian’s ‘Tigermilk’ such an unguarded treat while bringing up the rear the arresting ‘All and for one’ will ensure the memory of this EP will resonate long after its finished having neatly set up residence in your psyche. www.backwaterrecords.com
