Ball O'String / Nuts In May

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a collaboration between matt shaw (tex la homa) and paul hanford (ex-brothers in sound), and russel kemp.

this is a lovingly cared for limited 7" release. with each cover being hand painted by artist nic rawling.

how more personal can packaging be.

this care and love is very welcome and obvious once the needle hits the delicate grooves.

ball o'string has a soft warm bassline and disjointed beats that create a warm hypnotic atmosphere with a distant trumpet part provided by label fello dave from betika, as well as some baffling sci-fi sounding bleeps/swooshes. the vocals drift around and everything is directed towards the listener from various angles (headphones a must for this) which at first feels unnerving, but by the third listen you succumb to the strangeness and are enraptured by the beauty.

i actually stopped reading and just froze with joy and repeated this track 3 times .. back to back.

something i never do - it's that good.

second track has a different feel. starting with a scratchy guitar and white noise which has not been filtered out making it sound like some ancient field recording .. only to added to by a seemingly random piano part ( recorded in a school hall ?) and triangles at various non rhythmic intervals. then slowly during this calm cacophony a moment of sheer clarity occurs and pulls the track together before it collapses again.

making a moment, a wonderful sonic moment.

once more this is a very strange 3 minutes, but utterly original and in years to come will still provide the same bewilderment and joy in equal measures.

so has january provided my track of the year already ?

i have to say 'ball o'string' is going to take some beating ..

just get it now .. even if you don't have a record deck - just get it.