Duncan Lloyd — I O U O M E (May 26th, 2017)

              ^{Duncan Lloyd — I O U O M E (May 26th, 2017)}   •¬•    I O U O M E is Duncan Lloyd’s new record, a deeply absorbing album, rich with melody, melancholy and wit.
•¬•    “Highly reverberant guitars shimmering like the light from beyond, and with a voice that echoes like a ghost in the back of your mind, coaxing you softly into a waking state from a dream.” — Tiny Mix Tapes
•¬•    Duncan Lloyd is a guitarist, lead songwriter and backing vocalist for Maxïmo Park. He also works as a solo artist releasing albums on Warp Records (U.K.) and most recently Crash Symbols (U.S.). He works under the name, ‘Decade In Exile’ as well as his own name. He is also in the experimental band Res Band from Derby. Alongside songwriting Lloyd is an exhibiting painter and photographer.Origin: Derby, England
Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Album release: May 26th, 2017
Record Label: Afternoon In Bed Records UK
Duration:     31:13
Tracks:
01. The City Weeps     3:21
02. You Seem Confused     2:27
03. Heart in Delay     3:33
04. Being Frank     2:31
05. A Little Lit Up     3:05
06. Painters     3:24
07. Steel Pin Raindrops     3:23
08. Tomorrow’s Fires     3:00
09. Heads of the Bastille     3:39
10. Really     2:50
Notable instruments:
ι•ιι   Westone Rainbow
ι•ιι   Fender Telecaster
ι•ιι   Fender Jazzmaster
ι•ιι   Rickenbacker 330
ι•ιι   Gibson SG
ι•ιι   Gibson Les Paul Doublecut
•       Written & recorded by Duncan Lloyd.
•       Private press. Limited to 150
Additional musicians :
•       Tom English (Drums)
•       Nicole Yun (Eternal Summers) — (Vocals on ‘Heart In Delay’ + ‘Heads Of The Bastille’)
•       Andy May (Rhodes on ‘Heads Of The Bastille’)
Review
•¬•    At heart, ‘I O U O M E’ is an album constantly in motion, brightly flickering arrangements lurch through radioactive nights and strange meandering days; an evermore intoxicating experience on repeat listens. It is an album about surviving change, detailing the effort to escape self destructiveness, division and the inevitable breakdown of certain relationships. Candid observations unfold with a depth and effortlessness that is mirrored by it’s musicality.
•¬•    “These songs come from a more personal perspective and it’s fair to say there is a lot of longing in them. They were mostly written travelling on long journeys, often late at night when ideas tend to mutate & evolve in a way which is less black & white, where finer subtleties appear.”
•¬•    Lloyd’s voice has a tactile warmth, weaving around deftly self~produced music, as if through his own nocturnal metropolis. The melodies keep you afloat but between the layers there’s an emotional intimacy borne of experienced songwriting, both nimble and volatile.
•¬•    Songs about ailing relationships, ‘Being Frank’ and ‘Heart in Delay’, sprawl with guitars doubling back on themselves; there is a sense of quiet self loathing, eclipsed by the cosmic harmonies of Nicole Yun from the U.S. band Eternal Summers.
•¬•    There’s nostalgia too: ‘Painters’ sails on warped tape loops and distant drum tracks; ‘A Little Lit Up’ rocks along with yearning melancholia; “It’s going to take one stiff drink to make this memory die”.
•¬•    There’s a feeling throughout of having a last drink with friends before leaving town, followed by the loneliness of a new city and a new beginning; “Sometimes sombre / a little lit up / let’s be courageous and talk”. A search if you will, for twilight epiphanies.
•¬•    ‘Really’, the albums closer, was recorded live in Newcastle, with a texturally sparse air and out of body delivery. It is solid songwriting that is unsurprising coming from the man behind the music of many of Maximo Park’s best loved songs from “Books From Boxes” to “Going Missing”.
•¬•    These themes are universal but Lloyd puts his unique perspective on them, sometimes with inward reflection, sometimes zooming out for the big picture, allowing the listener to fill in details relating to their own life experiences.
•¬•    Ultimately ‘I O U O M E’ is an absorbing album, rich with melody, melancholy and wit.
•¬•    With the addition of Tom English (Maximo Park) on drums, the album powers into sonorous focus, never lapsing, it is a full blown journey that is saying something worth hearing and for Lloyd, the end result this time, is his alone.
•¬•    https://terrorbird.com/
Bandcamp: https://duncanlloyd.bandcamp.com/
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Duncan Lloyd — I O U O M E (May 26th, 2017)

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