Staff Reviews

Goldheart Assembly - Long Distance Song Effects

Review by Aaron Lavery

Overall, it’s fair to say that Long Distance Song Effects is pretty much what you’d expect if you were one of the few who heard Goldheart Assembly’s debut album.»

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Named after a Guided by Voices song, Goldheart Assembly's music is known for it's pastoral soundscapes and rich harmony led songs, but, that that is too simple to be true. Recorded in Luzern, Switzerland, 'Long Distance Song Effects' was shaped over a period of two years. Back and forth the band went from London to Luzern, desperate, aiming to suck at least some of the marrow from an otherwise seemingly senseless existence. With the curiosity of what could be harvested in this global tax haven neverland, Goldheart Assembly discovered their raison d'etre and plowed into the studio with a Swiss musician / producer Tobi Gmur, a man with a studio and little else. Having met Gmur on a European tour Goldheart Assembly made full use of his offer to make the studio available to them, modestly furnished though it was, it nonetheless became a sanctuary of supportive late night sessions and mutually expressed ideas. Back in London after having recorded 25 tracks, and argued incessantly over running orders and the prudence of releasing a double album, recording was concluded with the addition of strings, horns and other high-brow musical fluff. Whilst not wishing to appear ungrateful, this one does not sound like the British Fleet Foxes (lazy Luke says to someone equally savvy and enlightened). 'Long Distance Sing Effects' does perhaps sound like The Beatles, Wilco maybe, with a helping of Scott Walker, and hold your nose, a shading of Cluster and NEU! Or that's the way we see it. Among the songs included are combative complaints of 'nu-folk' comparisons (Billy in the Lowground), Spector-esque epics (Sad Sad Stage, Behind this Lonely Sun), vaudeville whimsy (Stephanie and the Ferris Wheel), existential mumberlings (Linnaeus), psychedelic pop (Into Desperate Arms, Transit) and plaintive ballads of regret (Harvest in the Snow) and obsession (Bird on a Chain). You could say the resultant album 'Long Distance Song Effects' fuses a disparate array of influences, both ambitiously lush and elegantly understated, a sprawling yet cohesive whole. If you like that sort of thing.
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