Of all the black sheep the reasonable people of Warp have shepherded into their
flock since deciding they had higher ambitions than merely fleecing IDM
followers of their cash, the most curious has been Gravenhurst, the one-man
band for Bristol-based boy Nick Talbot, a sentimental, slightly sappy
songsmith whose Warp debut (a reissue of his second record, Flashlight
Seasons) wove a wussy blanket for the melancholy to huddle under.
Things take a more curious turn on Black Holes in the Sand, the
first Gravenhurst recording recorded for the Warp empire and not
just because Talbot does a yearning, stark-naked cover of Hüsker
Dü's "Diane" (once memorably mutilated by Therapy?, I note). Here,
on an album that'll get called a "mini-album," Talbot aligns himself
with the whole outsider-folk crowd, beginning proceedings with the seven-minute
title track, a bundle of brittle rustic-folk twigs tied together in a
pretty bow. There's an almost pop-like smoothness on the tune, which
ties Talbot's soft singing and gentle fingerpicking to incessant stabs
of omnichord, banged percussion, and drone guitar such added by
Jeffrey Alexander and Miriam Goldberg of Charalambides-associated, post-Iditarod,
droney freak-folk duo Black Forest/Black Sea. Building a bridge to such
a (the folk) scene marks quite the change for Gravenhurst, given that
his previous discs made Talbot seem like a bashful boy-as-island, making
his rainy-day acousticky tunes with no connection to any greater musical
community (be it contemporary or historical). Here, he not only plays
with some other kids, but dares get his hands dirty; the thick tape-hiss
and vocal-decay of "Winter Moon" is a deliberate excursion into the aesthetically
rudimentary; the subsequent rawness lets Talbot get a little more shaggy
and daggy than he did the first time around. That the-first-time, it
seemed like Warp led Gravenhurst like a lamb to the slaughter; knowing
they'd be lambasted for such an obvious attempt at joining the "new folk" flock,
yet forging ahead nonetheless. Here, looking a little rougher round the
edges, their prized signing suddenly seems more of-the-land than on-the-lam.
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