DEUX FILLES - SPACE AND TIME - ALBUM REVIEW

Deux Filles:
Space and Time:
Les Disques du Crepuscule:
LP (limited)/CD/DD:
Out February 1st 2016:

★★★★★★★★☆☆

Two talented gentlemen performing with feminine nom-de-plumes and a penchant for sumptuous melodies and odd found-sounds, you say? What could possibly go wrong? With the aforementioned chaps being soundtrack bon-vivant Simon Fisher Turner and producer-cum-creative Colin Lloyd-Tucker (The The) at the helm, positively nothing.

Their first collaborative Deux Filles release since the '80s (both Silence and Wisdom and Double Happiness appeared in reissued form in 2015), Space and Time is very much a global project. Derived of vignettes composed during trips to Japan, France and Nicaragua, as well as homeland dalliances, tracks veer from disorientating poetic whimsy (Mandy's Playground) to musique-concrète (Happy Ending) via blissed-out electronica (Treasure Trove of Memories), biographical dialogue (Pighouse Parachute Blues) and pastoral motifs (Her New Master).

The twenty-four tracks rarely invade the three-minute threshold and contain everything but beats, with only the crazed hoedown of Mouth Popsicle Explosion approaching anything like a rhythmic excursion, while, shock and horror, Mata Laya Pata has a drum-machine decorating the centre-point of its aural smorgasbord of kid's playgrounds, clicks, birdsong and public announcements.

The more you dip into the depths of Space and Time, the more you discover. It's otherworldly in places, made for headphones and may well appeal to those of you enthralled by the Touch label (Hafler Trio etc), Nurse With Wound, Virginia Astley, Brian Eno's Music For Airports, Erased Tapes and the like. Matt Johnson and Annie Hogan add their own deft touches to the mix.

For Space and Time purchases, as well as bundles including the Silence and Wisdom CD, head here