Currently a member of Glasgow act St Dukes – signed to the Last Night From Glasgow label – and Gold Mold act Hound, Lewis Douglas has found time to strike out on his own with a solo project that he describes as “rhythmically tight, technically dumb”.
Not a bad summary in fact, this five track EP’s lo-fi-ness (or low finesse?) a virtue rather than a criticism. It’s out on January 31st, and appropriately in a sense as Celtic Connections is currently on, the untitled opening track is an instrumental with fingerstyle guitar very reminiscent of Bert Jansch.
‘Bends’ follows, a hazy strummy dreamy kinda tune as flute meanders and drums pitter-pat in the background and the unobtrusive refrain “Sail me down the waterfall” adds to the general feel rather than setting out any particular manifesto.
‘It Won’t Be Long’ has more of a Pavement-y chug about it which is fitting, since like all tunes here recorded over the space of a couple of years before being mixed by Chris McCrory on a Tascam 4 track and mastered by Sam Smith.
‘Door In The Wall’ sports a slightly incongruous rhythm unit and slide guitar but it’s back To Bert for closer ‘Hello’ which with vocal added brings a hint of early Martin Stephenson. Nice and well worth the effort of rescuing these otherwise forgotten recordings.
- Skloss - 20 February 2025
- Lewis Douglas - 20 February 2025
- Quiet, The Art - 26 January 2025