What can one say about Grumbling Fur? Daniel O’Sullivan and Alexander Tucker are one of the most idiosyncratic pairings to have graced the world of experimental music in many a year, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. Both have explored more musical forms in their careers to date than are conceivable in the minds of most, with experience in fields as diverse as pastoral psych folk and the ultimate in drone doom, yet ‘Glynnaestra’, remarkably, ends up sounding little like a follow-up to their previous works.
On ‘Furrier’, the pair’s debut, the Grumbling Fur sound seemed to meander, at times without clear direction, between ideas belonging to O’Sullivan and Tucker’s various other musical projects. ‘Glynnaestra’ is more of a focused moulding of stylistic approaches. The sound here is consistent and complete. Instead of being directionless, in fact, it could be accused of being too nailed down.
This in itself marks a rarity for both musicians. The uniting goal of many an O’Sullivan and Tucker project has been to openly dispense with musical boundaries, but ‘Glynnaestra’ doesn’t do that. This is, like O’Sullivan’s last Mothlite album, ‘Dark Age’, a “pop” record of sorts.
Synths take the predominant melodic leads, but there’s still a Krautrock feel to the mix that allows the percussion to take a significant amount of the limelight alongside some enjoyably distinctive, albeit limited, vocal harmonies.
It all sounds alarmingly close to a lost cut from the late years of the Canterbury Scene at points, but such an obvious comparison is deceptive. The songwriting directness of Protogenesis or The Ballad of Roy Batty make it clear that there’s little in the way of noodling here and compositional complexity is not the aim of the game. It’s the naïve, but charming, innocence of early Pink Floyd that best encapsulates the curiously fresh feel that ‘Glynnaestra’ is able to project.
Much like ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ from all those decades ago this is a record that sounds like it wants to accomplish so much and head in so many directions, yet its real achievements lie elsewhere. It’s intricately-layered art pop at its most deliciously appealing.
Forget the experimental tendencies of both its creators and instead focus on what’s most obviously in front of you. Yes, there are drones and weird sound effects, but there also tunes that belong to a rich heritage of British songwriting, and they become the focus of this record.
If Glynnaestra, the character, is a fake goddess, then ‘Glynnaestra’, the album, is a fake pop record, and one that is all the more delightful and listenable as a result.
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