You Look Cold

Much of the electronica made in the early days of bedroom studios was shit. The main reason indie musicians began fecking around with drum machines was an intense dislike of drummers (they’re pretty damaged people) and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Pretty quickly there was a lot of badly-blended electro ‘n’ indie being made, but this was generally the musical equivalent of sewing a fish to a squirrel, and many desperate music critics wrote glowing reviews while the abominations writhed a bit and died. This has changed in recent years, as evidenced by the gifted Patrick Kelleher, who’s produced a record of such beautiful organic-sounding electro-folk that you’d think he’d come from a long legacy of tribal musical technologists. There are touches of folk, blues, torch-songs, gospel and bebop here, all bound together by looped and layered tape experiments, pizzicato strings, synths, jam-jar percussion and Kelleher’s clear unaffected croon. It’s lovely.

Key Track: ‘Wintertime’s Doll’