leyland kirby: intrigue & stuff vol 4

James Leyland Kirby returns with an uncompromising, poetic and unexpected fourth and final installment in his long-dormant Intrigue & Stuff series, dispatched from his new base in Krakow for his own History Always Favours The Winners label. Since we last heard from the provocateur, he's issued brilliant albums as The Caretaker and The Stranger, a cracking 12" for his formative heroes R&S/Apollo, and marked his 40th birthday with a 40-track album of piano pieces... yet we can't help but feel that he's saved some of his most deliriously spannered and heartbreakingly personal intimations for this new LP. Opening with a proper shock-out modeling mutant fractals and strobing loops that are almost junglist in tempo and structure on "Locked into Situations," the spirit-crushed and sozzled boogie-sludge of "Derelict Bar" follows and marks out territory in a dark, dank corner. Over on the B-side, he yields the intoxicating whiskey fume shimmer and viscous roil of "The Tar Sands," plus a strange percussive piece that sounds like lonely seamen performing drum rituals in a ship's hull, and concludes with the somnolent symphony of spectral siren chorales, synth brass and claggy bass in "Wanting an Absolute Beyond." We'll never quite know the intentions behind these tracks, but we can tell you they function equally as escape pods and ideal drinking soundtracks. Imbibe deeply and responsibly.