Tom Donnelly who is probably better known as Scottish indie pop/rock band Close Lobster’s guitarist released `Musique Vérité`, his third solo album towards the end of last year. A pattern seems to be emerging as his previous albums `Germinal` was released in 2020 and `You Are Here` in 2022.
We are led into the album by `Château De Lait` which may translate to Castlemilk which begins with a kind of public service broadcast encouraging us to listen as a dreamy ambient soundscape is interwoven with an electronic pulse like sound. We have a brighter almost sparkling resonance in `Messidor` which may be named after the tenth month in the French Republican Calendar, from the Latin word messis ‘harvest’. For me it expressed a sense of happiness and joy.
`In Sight` gave me the sensation of movement, like a rail journey where you`re looking out the window in anticipation of arriving in somewhere new or unfamiliar. `Maximilien` follows and although the name equates to greatest the track is fairly dreamlike.
The title `Music of the Starry Night` conjures up for me Don McLean`s tribute to Vincent van Gogh from fifty odd years ago but here it does have a sparkling stellar texture or celestial beauty about it. I hadn`t realised that `Smyrna` was an Ancient Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia now called Izmir. I visited there thirty odd years ago and in hindsight maybe didn`t appreciate it`s significance. This track has a slightly edgy feel with some Middle Eastern tones, rumbling thunder and bells ringing which gives it an anxious vibe.
`Dream Sequence I` begins with somebody entering a room and sharing a piano recital for around a minute before the composition takes off and is driven or led by a rhythmic guitar riff and accompanying synth groove. A more rock driven number which invokes the feeling of rapid movement. The arrangement blends into what is `Dream Sequence II` which is a kind of replication of the former but driven by a synthesised timbre with guitar riffs joining in the last forty seconds or so.
The title `Appenzeller` intrigued me and I read it’s a hard, cow’s milk cheese from the Appenzellerland region of Switzerland. This number opens with what may be a Treicheln or Swiss cows bell before retaining a gentle musical sound that did give the impression of an Alpine setting. Waves crashing against a shore leads us into `I Saw A Ship` the final piece and longest submission on the album. A tender and clam ambient offering for the first half with some intricate guitar chords shared atop a synthesised tempo with occasional soundbites interspliced such as squawking gulls and train horns. A pulsing vibrating electronic beat then envelops us and guides us along and out of this final section.
There one final secret track attached to the end of the album, a minute long with a brief spoken word oration confirming that it is indeed the end and shared over some enticing harp strings.
Tom Donnelly`s latest album `Musique Vérité` or musical truth is an interesting mix of aural sounds and is just under an hour of alluring and inviting auditory stimulants. A delightfully enjoyable listen if you`re prepared to set aside the time required for it to permeate your psyche.
Rating 8.5/10
