Adelaide's Cape : 'Last Sleep in Albion'
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Released: 8th March 2010
Label: Dustbowl Records
Norwich-based Adelaide’s Cape, doesn’t sound like a Naarfolk born and bred kind of guy. In fact I’m pretty sure he - Sam Taylor - is Scottish, but he’s based between Norwich and Bath (Obviously I don’t mean that as a very rough geographical pin in your map, but he splits his time between the two and London.).
Anyway, now solo after technically parting ways with Hannah Richardson - though she features heavily on this debut EP ‘Last Sleep In Albion’- he’s enlisted an eight-piece orchestra to thicken out his organic lo-fi folk, and it sounds pretty darn beautiful for it.
Opener ‘Anchored Down’ is more than a bit Fionn Regan, such comparisons are to be expected due to the thick accented vocals, intricate picked acoustics and earthy lyrics. ‘Girl Of The Land’ stews as a repetitive acoustic threatens to throw it into a storming ramshackle country shuffle and when it does you’ll find yourself hovering the repeat button. The layers fall into place brilliantly, multiple acoustics, vocals, even hand drums.
‘Stay’ shows what he might miss ahead, the harmony with Hannah Richardson works unerringly. The most simple of the EP, it’s the sort of shuffle every singer-songwriter needs - big La-La’s- the song that bring massive smiles to a crowd. The sparse ‘Rush Hour Wind’ is Last Sleep In Albion’s slowest moments, like a delicate Frightened Rabbit, becoming pensive and haunting. A questionable middle takes it into uncertain territory nearly undoing the good of before but it survives, just about.
It’s a promising start for Adelaide’s Cape and Sam Taylor but by no means the finished article. Closer ‘Fiction’ feels nothing more than an improvised few folky minutes. It’s the likes of ‘Anchored Down’ and ‘Girl Of The Land’ that lift Last Sleep In Albion, and possibly Taylor, to bigger things.
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