Artificial Light

Country-folk/sci-fi ballads, from New Zealand. Creepy and dark. Male vocals (near Dylan and Sudden in tone), guitars, drums, and weird electronics. First full-length solo project by Brian Cook (also in Renderers with his wife Maryrose). Play with Wayne Rogers, Liars, Mill Race, Nick Cave, The Microphones, Swell Maps. (This record is totally unrelated to the Anti-Clockwise from Portugal.) FCC clean, as far as I could tell. Start with 2, 5, 8.

1. Mostly instrumental, slow with fast percussion. Brief weird vocals. Starts with strange, muted, high-speed percussion. Ends suddenly.
==> 2. Slow, rolling, dark ballad. Guitar, drums, and weird electronics.
3. Dense and noisy electric ballad. Very Nikki Sudden. Starts with some silence, then comes in quietly... and later gets noisy.
4. Slow ballad, no drums. Stream-of-consciousness guitar. Processed vox.
==> 5. Hi-energy, lo-fi, noisy rocker. Ends with quiet, train-like drums.
6. Instrumental: guitar noises. Fairly quiet and yet ominous & creepy.
7. Slow & messy ballad. Lots of sci-fi electronics. Muted percussion.
==> 8. Loud, discordant guitars and heavy-reverb vocals. Frenetic percussion comes, goes, and comes back. Starts quietly.
9. Strummy, creepy, lo-fi ballad. Marching percussion & sci-fi synths.
10. Instrumental: spooky electronic chamber piece.