Ed Dowie has been involved in the music scene for the best part of 20 years, first as part of psychedelic three-piece Brothers in Sound, then as a solo musician under the name Redarthur. After a five-year pause in which Dowie sought to refine his own sound through study, he re-emerged in 2013 with a brace of EPs and now January 2017 sees the release of his first full-length album. The Uncle Sold, whose title is a clever play on words from the Kazuo Ishiguro novel The Unconsoled, confirms Dowie’s graduation from the unsettling abrasion of his earlier work to dreamier, softer-edged pop territory.
The album retains the ethereal nature that has characterised his oeuvre from the get-go, whilst condensing his melodies into more coherent, less jarring packages. His lilting vocals almost tempt the listener to drift off to sleep as the delicate plink-ponk of his piano-work massages their eardrums, while the swelling arrangements of almost every track on the album threaten to burst out through the speaker and into living, breathing form in front of us.
Unfortunately, this promise is not fully realised by many of them, with much of the album slipping into samey obscurity. ‘Red or Grey’, ‘David Is Unwell’ and final track ‘Richard’ buck the trend somewhat by introducing catchier elements which live longer in the memory, with the first of the three earning significant airtime from BBC 6 Music DJ Lauren Laverne. By and large, however, the songlist slips by like a pleasant but unremarkable dream which the sleeper almost instantly forgets upon awakening.
The one true exception to this consonance is ‘Yungpawel’, a delightfully stirring number which compensates for the failings of its trackmates. It’s easy to see why this satisfyingly slow-burner was chosen as the first single for the album – a little less apparent why ‘Red or Grey’ was selected by Laverne ahead of it. Over the course of its four minutes and sixteen seconds, Dowie absolutely nails the variform texture and evocative power that has unfortunately eluded him on most of the rest of the album.
All in all, The Uncle Sold is a tighter, more appealing piece of music than his previous efforts and demonstrates greater accessibility than on his EPs. While it’s soothing and inoffensive throughout, it only really flickers into life on a handful of tracks – but the dazzling blaze produced by the debut single makes it well worth a listen regardless.