Grasscut – 1 Inch/Half Mile
Review by Jack Foley
NINJA Tune act Grasscut unveil their debut album with mixed results…
Described as a transcendental journey across a real landscape, centering on the Sussex South Downs of High Down, but taking in frozen mountains in North Wales (Meltwater), a man with a metal walking stick in a park in Brighton (The Tin Man), his mother’s memories of post-war rationing (1946) to the slightly more metaphorical Nintendo Cathedral of Muppet and Hilaire Belloc riding a winged horse across the nation, it’s a deeply personal journey that yields hit-and-miss rewards for fellow travellers.
Grasscut are Andrew Phillips and Marcus O’Dair. The former is an award-winning film and television composer with over 100 screen credits, while the latter is a double bassist and keyboards player.
The pair made their live debut at the Loop Festival (Fourtet, Caribou, Holy Fuck) in August 2008, and have since performed at Tate Britain, The ICA, Union Chapel and Koko, as well as opening the main stage at The Big Chill 2009.
They have shared stages with Plaid, Clark, Luke Vibert, Tim Exile, Nathan Fake, Daedelus and Anti-Pop Consortium, and remixed the likes of Bonobo and Jaga Jazzist and been remixed by Nathan Fake and Bibio.
They have been played on BBC Radio 1, 2 and 3 as well as performing sessions on XFM and 6 Music (DJ fans include Rob Da Bank and Tom Robinson).
Their album, while certainly an ambitious offering, embraces a distinctly non-conformist approach to music-making, emerging as a curious journey with cinematic flourishes, during which the emphasis is on instrumentals.
There are occasional samples of people speaking about their own personal experiences,breaking up the electronic and providing the listener with pause for thought and insight into the inspirations behind the tunes.
But it doesn’t always make for a completely satisfying whole. For every grandstanding moment, such as album opener High Down or the delightful The Tin Man (which patiently gives rise to some wonderful electronic flourishes), there are duff moments such as Muppet or the off-kilter 1946, which never really gets going.
Taken as a whole, therefore, it’s a somewhat stop-start journey: interesting and haunting in places, but arduous at others.
Download picks: High Down, The Tin Man, Meltwater
Track listing: