Minotaur Shock - Orchard (Vinyl LP, CD)

Blooming heck where did this guy suddenly stick his head up from? Apparently It’s been four long years since his last outing and he obviously didn’t fluff-up the cash cushions much at 4AD as he’s landed right back at home base on the much more suitable Melodic! Which sums up the nature of this album - pastoral, tuneful and very, very lovely. Like everybody else during the “noughties” (another phrase I’d like to strangle or stamp to death) Bristol’s David Edwards loathed the term ‘folk-tronic’ so much he’s apparently decided to make the perfect “folk-tronic” album to stump all those lazy journos who think that style went out of fashion in 2003.

To be fair and quite honest, this sounds as fresh as a daisy - he’s utilised a lot of modern techniques throughout ‘Orchard’ and also deployed live percussion, reed instrumentation and bass. This gives the album a fluid, organic and playful quality that works as a sublime textural journey rather than merely a collection of tunes. His love of disco, downtempo house and kosmische music also shines through at times but nothing on here sounds remotely “bandwagon jumpy” or for that matter, dated. The melding of folk styles and electronics here is quite different, style and production-wise to the old bliss-out laptoppery that had everyone frothing at the mouth around the millennium!

So, on the whole It’s a labour-of-love throughout that will appeal to a massive cross-section of home listening beats lovers or for fans of general modern “chill-out” and minimal house, this, for me especially is his most remarkable album to date, believe!