Cosmo Sheldrake's second album pulls together six years of work into something that feels both overstuffed and oddly cohesive. Twenty-one tracks mix banjo, synths, field recordings and treated voices into arrangements that shift between folk-song structures and collaged sound pieces. Some tracks, like "Marvellous Clouds" and "The Feet Are The Link", settle into grooves built from looped phrases and layered percussion. Others drift closer to musique concrète, stitching together environmental recordings with fragmented melodies.
The production, handled by Sheldrake and mixed by Dilip Harris, keeps things dense but legible. Instruments appear, drop out, reappear processed beyond recognition. A banjo line might sit next to manipulated bird calls and a drum machine without any of them fighting for space. It is busy music that does not feel cluttered, which is harder than it sounds across seventy-odd minutes.
This will work for people who liked his debut or anyone drawn to the weirder end of UK folk-electronic crossovers. It asks for patience and does not resolve into easy listening, but the craft is there throughout.
