I’ve not been to an album ‘listening party’ since who knows when… and I wasn’t able to make the one held at Linlithgow’s Low Port Music for the new release by English act Held By Trees either, so was forced to conduct my own at home.
The first time I was at such an event was a highly stagemanaged demonstration for the first Marantz CD players in the UK, so early 1980s. They set the scene with a Dire Straits track – extensive and painful research suggesting it was ‘Private Investigations’ – which evokes memories of that evening, plied with free booze in a darkened room.
On ‘Hinterland’s opening track, ‘Edge Of Town’, a miasma of atmospheric electronic sounds gives way to an extended guitar piece evoking Dave Gilmour, or indeed the work of Mark Knopfler.
The Held By Trees biog says while they are mainly inspired by Talk Talk (more ‘Spirit Of Eden’ than ‘The Party’s Over’), prime mover David Joseph has assembled an ensemble of musicians who have also worked with, yes, Pink Floyd and Dire Straits as well as Mark Hollis, so they will hopefully take these comparisons as compliments.
The album is a curious mix, in that the longer pieces clock in at eight minutes or so, alternating with shorter, almost interludes. ‘The Boundary’ is a short piece driven by jazzy sax, perhaps a little too melodic, while the almost-title-track ‘Hinterland Soul’ – except the album is vocal and lyric-free – sports spooky organ in the vein of Tindersticks or even the Blue Nile, before building slowly to a crescendo mid-song, rather doing a Mogwai on us. However, the saxophone rather sits at odds with any post rock ambitions, instead leading us to ‘The Path’s boppy noodling. Another influence seats them at the fringes of chilled US alt.rock, though personally I preferred Codeine to Morphine.
‘Between States’ similarly builds on a piano-driven soundscape, contrasting with ‘The Pylon Line’, overarching organ combining with almost fingerstyle guitar before closer ‘Boughs and Branches’ eschews musicality for atmosphere, piano bursting through in a fully-immersive experience.
Indeed, that may be the best way to enjoy Held By Trees – headphones-on, curtains drawn, and surround yourself in the experience. If speakers are your preference then I know where you can pick up a new sound system…
Also chief newshound at Jockrock
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