It’s not an exaggeration to say that in the last 5 years, I’ve spent more time listening to Syd Arthur than any other artist. The initial link might have been a geographical one to Canterbury, plus the fact that their music in the past has doffed its cap to the likes of Caravan et al, but they have been such a tight, innovative, folky/jazzy entity in their own right that they quickly generated a identity in their own which made any pigeonholed comparisons irrelevant.
On ‘Apricity’, their third full album (after ‘Sound Mirror’, ‘On and On’ and a couple of stunning earlier folk-based EPs ‘Moving World’ and ‘Kingdoms of Experience), it’s clear that something fairly major has happened: maybe it’s the departure of original drummer Fred Rother (apparently through tinnitus), the fact that maybe the band have become tired with trawling around low-key venues to little acclaim, possibly something to do with their regular touring the States as a support act, who knows?
Anyway, prefaced by their recent singles ‘Apricity‘ and ‘Sunrays’, Syd Arthur appear to be morphing into a keyboard-based, somewhat funkier outfit than their folky roots: still peddling extremely catchy tunes, but with a couple of key changes: Raven Bush, a superb violinist who also did much to create the trademark Syd Arthur sound through his blistering electric mandolin solos, now appears to spend most of his time resident behind the aforementioned keyboard, whilst the arrival of a third Magill brother, Josh, on drums, appears to have had the effect of straightening out the rhythms – this despite plenty of live videos on Youtube of him thrashing around dervish style on tracks from ‘Sound Mirror’, or even the subtlety I’ve heard in him backing more jazzy Canterbury outfits.
And so, at this stage, a day or so into listening to ‘Apricity’, for me the jury is still out. The album appears to have lost a lot of the intricacy of previous excursions, and that’s a real pity – the Syd Arthur of old appeared to routinely pack in the diversity of a 10 minute prog track into 3 or 4 minute popbites. On the other hand, the songs (witness ‘No Peace’, ‘Apricity’ and the hypnotic ‘Evolution’) are as insanely catchy as ever and will have you waking up in the night with Liam Magill’s melodies going round your head. Syd Arthur are immensely talented – it will be interesting to see what the setlist blend is on their current tour – will they still perform their classics like ‘Ode To The Summer’ and ‘Pulse’? And will the change in direction pay off – witness them being album of the week in Mojo – (and by the way, I’ve just read their review, and there appear to be lots of common threads with this piece – coincidence, not plagiarism) and bring them the audience they deserve? Let’s hope so…
The Canterbury scene(zine) continued.... 