Stealing Sheep - What If The Lights Went Out EP
A journey through landscapes as obscure as the human condition.
Two out of the three original names in this all girl alt-folk oddity recently said goodbye. Fortunately the surviving original member has a voice that could melt an iceberg, and the girls joining her are highly talented multi-instrumentalists in their own right.
Manchester’s Red Deer Club has an established reputation as a breeding ground for curious but enjoyable musicians from the region and beyond. With sessions on 6Music for Marc Riley, and well-worn slots on Lauren Laverne’s play list, Stealing Sheep should draw fresh light to the DIY label, while getting bucket loads of respect from fans of CocoRosie, Bat For Lashes and similar female dominated, other worldly outfits.
Strings stream pure melancholic affection like a heart cut open on a plate, laid bare for all to see and, more importantly, hear the emotions inside Shoot The Ducks To Win, the most heartbreaking of all five tracks. Elsewhere feelings may be invoked, but they’re never so crammed full of apparent unspoken tragedy.
Lighter moments are here in abundance too. Choirs and acoustic guitars walk down country lanes in Love You Are A Record and Sleep. Both reference classic English folk and prayer-like traditional song in a way that is at once irremovable from these genres, yet so blatantly contemporary you know each could only have been written recently.
Things get more surreal when the carousel of child-like twinkles in 'Hole In The Water' fires up. And a hearty drink in some fairy-tale gypsy tavern is all that comes to mind throughout the confessions of undying love and accordions that carry 'There’s Only One'. A journey through landscapes as obscure as the human condition, it’s at once as childlike yet scarred from adulthood as we all are.
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