I don’t know anything about the band that Broken Shoulder is a departure from, but it is apparently the side project of one member of that band who, while laid up with an ailment (I’ll let you guess what it was) recorded this album. At first I thought it was a concept album about the “life” of a mote of dust, trapped in a shaft of sunlight in a warm room, because that is not only what it sounds like but what it feels like as you listen. Fuzzy tones, distortion and noise are layered and panned and arranged in a ridiculously simple way, but the guiding hand behind it takes the sound of virtually nothing and slowly but surely creates something. Just when you are comfortable with the first two songs he goes and changes the format, using percussive guitar noises and faraway distortion sounds to create a pair of lo-fi lullabies. “Ultimate Donko” is the single obviously, because its just a regular bit of very lovely guitar music, but makes you feel like you’re trapped in amber and very happily too. “Stille Nacht” may be my favourite song on here. It appears to be composed of various melancholy noises (a foghorn, a steam trains whistle, brass, woodwind and strings) all overlapping, so that they are indistinguishable from each other. The effect is hypnotic and the minimal composition somehow turns it into something almost symphonic…epic and beautiful.

This album is the sound of the summer but at a sub-atomic level, and when you think that you can pick up a copy for only three quid here (http://audioantihero.bandcamp.com/album/broken-shoulderrr) it makes me wonder what you’re still doing sat there.

http://www.audioantihero.com

Kim Monaghan

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