C Duncan
Architect
Fatcat Records
Who would have thought the son of two classical musicans with a degree in composition from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, producing music from his Glasgow bedroom with a moniker straight out of the Wisden cricketers' almanack could come up with one of the albums of the year?
That is what we have with this towering genre-hopping exploration of the eclectic world of C Duncan.
This genuinely inspirational debut adventure takes dynamic arrangements sometimes reminiscent of The Blue Nile at their best and underpins it with upliftingly layered harmonies, a sensual classical ear, haunting hooks, and neat indie acoustic jangles to create a captivating choral space-folk amalgam.
Two early cuts from the album For and Silence and Air were amongst my favourite tunes of last year - and there is far more to feast on here from the soaring title track with its cute 'la la la' refrain, to the killer opener Say, complete with its ethereal Roxy Music-esque swagger.
A stripped down swoonsome I'll Be Gone By Winter provides a perfect acoustic "goodbye" to a 12-song hymnal masterpiece to treasure from an artist not just Scotland should take great notice of.
Martin Williams
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