Staff Reviews

Thomas Dolby - A Map of the Floating City

Review by Joseph Stannard

For all its stylistic diversity - bluegrass, bossa, jazz and electro all get a look in - and voracious internationalism, Floating City is a work with an identifiable centre. Home is where the heart is, Dolby’s being East Anglia, the same region of the British Isles that inspired Brian Eno’s bleakly nostalgic Ambient 4: On Land.»

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deluxe digipack cd with 16 page booklet and 18 page foldout poster. it comes with a second disc of instrumentals and bonus tracks. thomas dolby, the ground-breaking '80s star whose smash hits 'she blinded me with science' and 'hyperactive!' helped define the mtv generation, breaks his 20-year silence with a long-awaited new release titled 'a map of the floating city'. the album features appearances by special guests mark knopfler, regina spektor, natalie macmaster, eddi reader, bruce woolley and imogen heap. of the album, which is divided into three parts, dolby says, "the songs are organic and very personal. the album is a travelogue across three imaginary continents: in amerikana i'm reflecting with affection on the years i spent living in the us, and my fascination with its roots music. urbanoia is a dark place, a little unsettling . . . i'm not a city person. and in oceanea i return to my natural home on the windswept coastline."
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