News From Delphi is the sound of an established singer-songwriter pushing boundaries, both collaboratively and sonically. While previous releases have been solitary affairs, for his latest album Atticus Kane teamed up with Lucas Murray and Simon Thomas George, noted musicians and producers in their own right, to expand the musical vision.
Collaboration is a mind-expanding experience, not least from having other people’s ideas pour into the process… if two heads are better than one, imagine what three will do… and so new sounds, new thoughts, new approaches, new attitudes are all found in the mix.
The result is an album forged at the point where the solo troubadour is pulled towards the full-band sound, the two worlds looking to lift and temper each other as required.
“Burned By You” sets the scene: a David Gray-esque piece of poised pop, but full of swooning, soaring pedal guitars and lilting banjos, the sound of country influences playing out in an indie-pop sound.
And if that opener is touched with the pain of a failed relationship, “Why Wait” is the exact opposite, embracing that let’s go for it attitude; “I Want You Back” (which sits in the emotional middle ground) is a funky piece of neo-soul-rock that the likes of Prince would have loved to have had in his back pocket.
Then there are songs like “Ode To Minerva,” a sing-speak slice of unadorned acoustica, beautiful in its starkness, the voice and guitar only broken out of its singular reverie by a blast of beguiling, haunting sonics before heading back into its isolation.
Solo music is fine; the artist is in full control, is the only guiding hand, and has full responsibility for the finished music, but collaboration, with the right people, can bring out so much in the music, things that the artist may not have thought of, expand the original vision, and do so to spectacular effect…which is exactly what is happening here.
