Aerial Days
Label: Fat Cat
Length: LP
Release Date: 2006-01-12
Media: CD
Format: Album
WorkNameSort: Aerial Days
In 2005, Fat Cat Records released the lilting eponymous LP of demos from Song of Green Pheasant’s Duncan Sumpner. Frilly folk marked Sumpner’s efforts, and plentiful vocal harmonies on ‘I Am Daylightsâ?� and ‘The Wraith of Lovingâ?� augmented the U.K. songwriter’s taste for open-ended but focused psychedelia. He demonstrates an even more wayward approach on the subsequent Aerial Days, with lengthier pieces that are wider-spanning than those quartered off by his acoustic guitar. Aerial Days‘ ‘Remembering and Forgetting,â?� for example, moves very slowly from bare, minor-key guitar work toward brief inclusions of field noise and shrill, disintegrating piano notes. It’s intriguing, but hardly as lovely as opener ‘Pink by White,â?� a more pop-sounding full-band entry that retains Sumpner’s airy aim. It sports the not-polished-but-finished charm that Sumpner’s American counterparts are continually and unsuccessfully chasing. Yet, that characteristic is easier to detect on those demos than on Aerial Days.
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2007.