In 2012, Glasgow-based Remember Remember, led by Graeme Ronald, were nominated for a Scottish Album of the Year award for The Quickening.
In 2014, the combo's template of expertly crafted, layered and looped instrumental compositions remains. What is missing for most of this are biting hooks, so much here drifts pleasantly by like well-orchestrated background mood music to a lost 1970s movie. Whereas the best of Mogwai, who signed them up to their label, always did enough to fascinate through an evolving kaleidoscopic dynamic, the unrelenting repetition of unengaging melodies, as in Le Mayo, becomes a turn-off. There's much to admire; the immaculate artistry, the pastoral precision of the instrumentation and the sparse beauty of the production, but little to demand attention and treasure. That is, until six tracks in, when the 3D audio comfort blanket of Why You Got A Blue Face caresses the ears: 8 minutes 25 seconds of dazzling enchantment built around, for once, a beguiling and bewitching sequence that transcends everything else here.
Martin Williams
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