Staff Reviews

Ed Dowie - The Uncle Sold

Review by Haydon Spenceley

This is an album that requires time and focus»

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Ed's debut album The Uncle Sold takes its title from the 1995 Kazuo Ishiguro novel The Unconsoled, a unique and inspirational book that takes the reader on a continually evolving, dream-like journey around a non-specified city. Recorded in London at studio spaces in Dalston and Haringey, it’s a sometimes wistful, sometimes sad, sometimes uplifting and at all times surprising listen that paints a picture of a range of characters struggling for certainty in a metropolis beset by continually changing forces, be they political, personal or financial. Openers Verbarhemiopia and Red or Grey are gently prismatic wonders each, variously encompassing dreamy multi-layered voices, firework field recordings, static hiss, twirling fairground ride melodies and a playful, vaguely Gallic sounding accordion solo. A slowly crashing wave of heavy-hearted electronica with ethereal yet understated vocals summoning the spirit of Robert Wyatt and Arthur Russell, Yungpawel is a song about “a couple of very good friends of mine who sort of represent an ideal of how it’s possible to be,” says Ed, “inspiring, intelligent, active, self-aware, conscious, caring”. Set to a field recording of pouring rain, Bastard Harbour is a hauntingly melancholic piano meditation on ageing and death. Climactic closer Richard, a drowsy collage of needling guitars and sparkling synths with hints of Spiritualized and Super Furry Animals, brings a note of acceptance to the album’s final phase as the song’s titular drifter finally comes home.
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