4/5 stars
We are yanked into Dennison’s relentless whirlpool of sound and colour halfway through opener ‘Triptych’, where utter chaos is suddenly sucked into faultless melody that washes over insistent tribal drums.
Layers of disparate time and feel between voice and percussion are sewn together seamlessly and wound expertly into hallucinogenic soundscape, ‘My My’. It is as though Dorothy was shot out of a Kansas canon, sent screaming over the rainbow and landed head-first somewhere in rural West Africa.
We are stood frozen in the eye of a rhythmic storm, marvelling at gorgeous stretches of strings or hypnotic synth melodies, flying amid the twisted debris overhead. Percussive sounds and world instrumentation are the backbone of this record, and often the sole accompaniment (as in ‘I Don’t Love You Anymore’). Set against this exposed backdrop, Alyx’s vocal doubling is near spot on, and becomes obvious only in the odd split-second up high.
Lyrically, Alyx weaves a web of thoughtful tales of the big wide world (she has travelled extensively). Her mastery of each instrument’s role in the mix is clear, and results in a delectable serving of sound that is overall more wonderful than weird.
Alyx Dennison’s self-titled album is available through Popfrenzy.
