28 March 2013

28th March - King Creosote & Jon Hopkins' Diamond Mine


Artist – Album: King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Released:  28th March 2011
Sounds Like: Cardigans, bushy beards, and neeps and tatties.

Contentious decision time – rather than Houses of the Holy from hard rocking titans Led Zeppelin, I’ve opted to listen to Diamond Mine, a low selling, low key collaboration by Scottish troubadour King Creosote and ambient producer Jon Hopkins...

Personally, I was absolutely enamoured by the pair’s sketches from Scotland, a collection of songs that evocatively brings up images of stone wall cottages and cosy pubs in a fishing town in Fife. The album begins with a barely heard welcome from a bonnie wee lass and the muffled sounds of a shop counter transaction. Brian Eno-esque piano chords provide a sparse backdrop. The lightly strummed guitar don’t make an appearance until the second track ‘John Taylor’s Month Away’, a song much more in the style of typical KC (KC rules OK?). His lilting, softly accented croon captivates. And the album follows that pattern from there on in. Ambient, atmospheric break is followed by lovely acoustic ditty, follows ambient break, follows acoustic ditty. After just over half an hour, we finish with the last few notes of gentle coda ‘Your Young Voice’ and we’re transported back to our real lives; in my case, the charcoal grey skies and tall buildings of Manchester.

It goes some way to show the high regard that I hold this album in that i haven’t crow-barred into this review as many national stereotypes and clichés as humanly possible, as I did for Frenchies Air, the (not actually) Canadian Neko Case and St Patrick’s Day. Och aye the noo indeed.

Albumaday... rating: 7/10

1.       First Watch – 2:37
2.       John Taylor’s Month Away – 6:32
3.       Bats in the Attic – 3:43
4.       Running on Fumes – 6:36
5.       Bubble – 5:35
6.       Your Own Spell – 3:51
7.       Your Young Voice – 3:17

Listen to ‘Bats in the Attic ’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAt4sk8znk4

Also released on the 28th March:
1973: Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy




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