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Thee, Stranded Horse - Churning Strides

Anyone else remember the New Acoustic Movement? Yann Tambour certainly does.

Rating: 7

Anyone else remember the New Acoustic Movement? Yann Tambour the brains, voice and, indeed, everything else behind Thee, Stranded Horse certainly does. There was a time, immediately pre-Strokes, when the toilet circuit was awash with eloquent young men making sumptuous low-key music, and 'Churning Strides' recaptures that era superbly. The twistedly artsome title track, redolent, bizarrely, of Laurie Anderson and Joanna Newsom, is rather a red herring; Tambour works better when he stretches his vocals, rich with a Marmite-esque divisiveness but fluidly fragile throughout, over the likes of the enervating wash of 'Le Sel', the cruelly plucked and surreally sinister 'Fiend Over Your Knees' or, best of all, the hypnotic flamenco dervish 'Swaying Eel'. It's a simmering curio, perhaps, but a ride worth taking.

Iain Moffat