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Half-Cousin
The Orkneys, a small group of islands northeast of Scotland, are not exactly the Goa of Europe. Nobody makes a pilgrimage here to lose themselves in music. And yet the harsh climate seems to be a good source of inspiration, at least for Kevin Cormack and his project - even if the music that comes out of it fortunately has nothing to do with tie-dyed cave electronics. Half Cousin is a conglomerate of the most diverse ideas and approaches. Experimental folk is what you could call what began as a creative way to kill time and is now taking a huge step forward with the release of the second album "Iodine".
Comparisons with Syd Barrett, early Bjork or Devendra Banhart barely do IODINE justice: a thing of wild and magical beauty.
UNCUT 2007 ****
Half Cousin are a metaphysical revolution playing junked-up pastoral music for the psychiatric set. Which is a good thing – trust us.
NME
Music is played on boxes and garbage cans, cooking spoons and other household appliances are alienated, this transparent rhythmic framework is mixed with traditional folk tunes, fiddles and rocking horse melodies, and everything that is even remotely conventional is deconstructed with the next bar. It is avant-garde without being annoying, it demands, without being overwhelming. Each song has a great depth, which is like an expedition to the white spots on the map, but on the other hand there are so many safety nets and safety lines that you start the journey of discovery without any doubt, almost light-footed, excited and curious .
The second main character and constant in the Half-Cousin collective, which comes together loosely from members of friendly bands such as the Noisettes, The Hours and the Ex-Mescaleros when needed (live), is Jimmy Hogarth, an old school friend of Cormack, who now has a studio in London. While Cormack holds the songwriting pen in his hand, Hogarth fiddles around with cheap lo-fi electronics, invents percussion from family heirlooms and junk, makes the half-cousin's rumbling heart beat, but always gives the impression that it could He creates a fragile tension that, despite all its stringency, gives “Iodine” something thoroughly broken, which makes the record seem almost transparent and fleeting at certain moments, despite all its intensity.
Compared to the debut “The Function Room” (Groenland, 2004), the follow-up work is much more contrasting. While in the past, in addition to clearly interpretable Can references, comparisons to Bauhaus and Einstürzende Neubauten were obvious, today one also thinks of Hot Chip, Magnetophone, The Earlies and the like. Of course, the love for Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart is still in the air, and Cormack's melodies, which meander through the beat tangle in a complicated and twisted way, are always highly organic. The two friends act in a highly congenial way, which is perhaps This may be because friendships made on the Orkneys are anything but interchangeable, and not only for logistical and population density reasons. One thing is clear: this half-cousin will quickly become a favorite relative. The rest of the hunchbacked clan can be imagined You can't choose either.
provokes comparisons with Art Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin and Ivor Cuttler all at once.
MOJO 2007