Stornaway - Bonxie Unplucked
EP (Cooking Vinyl)
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| Stornaway - Bonxie Unplucked EP |
Release Date: 18th September 2015
Everyone's favourite Oxford folk
combo Stornaway with a trixy little six track EP and we should all be very
excited about it. The entirely acoustic 'Bonxie Unplucked' EP opens up with 'Between
The Saltmarsh And The Sea' which opens cautiously like a forlorn sea shanty
before unfolding in to a Divine Comedy meets Belle & Sebastian on an
uninhabited island kind of indie-folk ditty. On 'Get Low' there is a more
jaunty feel driven by a punchy acoustic rhythm and enveloped in some tight and
sugary sweet vocal harmonies that would the Beach Boys or Teenage Fanclub a run
for their money. There's a lovely bit of muted Banjo on 'Man On Wire' and a
gentle rhythm that creates the perfect tune for walking down a dusty track in a
Summer drenched field of corn.
Rippling guitar strings and some
perfectly dissonant harmonies are liberally splashed with a wash of cymbals for
'The Road You Didn't Take' and you are transported to an otherworldly place at
dawn as the fanciful creatures scatter in to the shadows when the sunlight
creeps in to their twilight world. 'Lost Youth' has an almost cheeky cockney
feel about but that lyrical content has bigger horizons and greater ideas to
wrap you up in. The EP comes to an end with one of the best reworkings I've
heard in a very, very long time. Stornaway's treatment of Yazz's 80s classic
'The Only Way Is Up' infuses an emotion and deep sense of feeling in to a song
that I've always enjoyed but only now fully understand. So with just the use of
acoustic instrumentation these boys have transported us to other worlds,
created beautiful pop harmonies and changed the face of the 80s. Not bad for a
cheeky little EP, eh?
More information: https://www.facebook.com/stornoway?fref=ts