FOTLED- Sun Water

This is impressive. Most music this quiet needs you to calm down, loosen up, and listen through earphones to take effect see. But ‘Sun Water’, the second record from one-man outfit Fotled (Brian to his mum), is powerful enough to punch through the fuzz of the world, the noise of the 9 to 5, and properly move you. Ok, sure, it owes a lot to genre godfathers like Godspeed, Red Sparowes and another Brian, right down to the titanic song titles, but Fotled pushes his project much further than cheap imitation or mere tribute, this is beatless watercolour noise of genuine quality. Opener ‘Beams Of Light Fell From The Sky’ is a soft and slow synth workout, ‘Only Bones…’ sounds like an alien chorus of strings, and ‘Peacefully, Unafraid’ is a brilliant experiment in sighs and echoes that says more in two minutes than other bedroom projects do across their entire existence. And unlike even Jonsi Birgisson’s recent advance into the ambient world, the slow-motion moves here come with an emotional weight that doesn’t need art, film, or a rocky icescape to make complete sense. Hell, if you can listen to the last thirty seconds of ‘Like The Severed Spinal Cords Of Distant Rotting Stars’ alone without checking over your shoulder for creeps and ghouls then you’re braver than anyone round these parts. Powerful stuff from a name to remember.