Scott Tuma Not For Nobody

This Scott Tuma seems like a complicated chap. I think he's a man with a lot of feelings, many of them sad, if this LP is anything to go by. After a really bizarre opening track with almost nothing going on besides a peculiar high-pitched vocal, this album takes shape as a beautiful piece of minimal, almost neoclassical, guitar-led composition, based around organic tones and repetitive, mournful refrains. In places it kind of brings to mind Dirty Three at their most restrained, in others there are Celtic folk elements at play. It's an inviting aesthetic, both comforting and spooked, merging ambient warmth with minimal composition in a really therapeutic way. Apparently this album came out originally in '08 but this is its first vinyl pressing; a clear sign of quality when people are willing to take a punt on a pressing so long after the fact, and thankfully it's not difficult to hear why.