It isn’t so much the purer acoustic folk blends that form the musical platform here that make this album so unique, but more the additional instrumentation that Nom De Plume weaves through them that sonically informs the album. Such sounds take it, for the most part, out of the well-traveled folk pastures and into a place that borders the rolling hills of psychedelia, the cosmic country valleys, and even crosses the alt and indie rivers as they snake through this creative land.
And so, whilst tracks like the one that shares its title might feel like recognisable forms, lilting, upbeat, fiddle-finessed and folk infused, we also find the spacious and drifting gothic-country-blues of “Fly”, the almost crooner-era, grand chamber pop meets shuffling dance grooves of “The Shadow” and the stacatto Travelling Wilburys-esque vibes of “We’re All Like That.”
It is hard to put your finger on why Circle the Dream is so infectiously odd and so beguilingly different. When you analyse what’s going on here, many of the musical building blocks are instantly recognisable. Yet, somehow, they can put them together in such a way that the resulting album is nothing less than a brilliant array of stunning sonic architecture.
But that’s the trick, isn’t it? Why study the brickwork of a cathedral when it is the overall effect, the more panoramic view that will take your breath away? And that, in musical terms, is precisely what is going on here.
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