the long lost: the long lost (2009)

The Long Lost
The Long Lost •••½
Ninja Tune

A moniker like Alfred Darlington could come straight out of a Victorian bildungsroman. One look at the man who goes by that name, complete with dandy garb and mutton chops, alongside his wife Laura, similarly clad in period dress, and you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled across a couple of historical re-enactors on a Bank Holiday at a National Trust property. In fact, the couple make up avant-garde duo The Long Lost, the domestic-born project of the classically and jazz-trained Mr Darlington, previously the man behind the ultra-experimental Daedelus. Soaked in cutting-edge music credibility, there are traces of his other musical existence in this eponymous debut, alongside influences that stretch right back to the time when their clothes were actually fashionable.

Opener ‘The Art Of Kissing’ evokes the atmosphere of a traditional ballad, and a vocal delivery from Laura that almost suggests she’d learnt the song at the feet of Sandy Denny. It’s a mournful way to start an album but it works because it confounds. ‘Sibillance’ seems to begin in a drafty school room with its nursery rhyme repetitions accompanied by unsteady, infantile xylophone, before moving into a shuffling rhythm as Alfred, like a portentous headmaster, joins in with a nursery rhyme of his own. And the oddness continues as ‘Overmuch’ pines for the poor vision that would make glasses a necessity, as good a disavowal of the cult of perfection as you are likely to find, while ‘Ballroom Dance Club’ begins with the sweeping strings of an old film score before launching into an atmospheric reminiscence of a school dance class.

‘Regrets Only’ takes you into a coldly seductive world of loss and pained remembrance, Mrs Darlington pining for lost love in a manner as far removed from the bland shallows of contemporary pop as you can get. This is music with history, pedigree and depth. And just in case you dared to think the album has a toehold on the conventional, a sample of a woman talking about her dead cat is followed by a sighing Laura over the most understated and basic acoustic guitar. It barely passes as a song, but ‘Cat Lover’ is undeniably affecting. Just as bizarrely, ‘Finders Keepers’ seems to reference ‘Unchained Melody’, though it later diverges enough to convince you that it wasn’t by intent. But only just.

Elsewhere, ‘Awash’ sees a touching infatuation grow into a lasting love affair (probably their own), while the antique suburban bohemia of ‘Domestics’ is a believable duet about matrimonial life. Alfred and Laura admit to drinking on school nights and organising parties where board games are played and taking breakfast in bed at teatime, the sight of a sleeping Laura making Alfred swoon, all accompanied by the sound of chiming hallway clocks.

With this consistently interesting debut, The Long Lost have created a self-sufficient little world, an intriguing place that takes you further into itself the more you listen to it. Though it falls broadly under the umbrella of psychedelia, you’ll be hard pressed to properly categorise what it is exactly you’re hearing. There are too many false leads for you to ever reach a conclusion, which I suspect is exactly the point. Nevertheless, there’s something here for antiquarians and confirmed modernists alike.

Martyn Clayton
UK release: 02/03/09; www.myspace.com/findthelonglost 

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: daedalus, martyn clayton, the long lost

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 am and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.