Homelife Exotic Interlude Review

Stripped down from their previous incarnation as a sprawling, ramshackle collective, Manchester's Homelife are now recording as a twosome. Paddy Steer and Anthony Burnside always were the group’s core, but now they've decided to play all the instruments themselves. Sometimes this doesn't require any overdubbing, as Steer can quite happily trigger basslines with his feet, whilst tinkering with an array of makeshift instruments laid out across his drum kit. Consequently, the compositions have lost most of their old globally adventuring qualities, trimmed back to a more basic singer-songwriter approach. Except that in the cluttered Homelife studio, the word 'basic' still means off-kilter, shambling, eccentric and half-kooked.

The foundation is built from the duo's attention to bass and drums, constructing rickety rhythms ornamented with tambourines, bells and miscellaneous tiny trinkets. Steer's basslines hark back to that ineffable sound of the late 1960s, believed to be lost but now rediscovered: an almost disembodied presence, permeating the lower thrum-levels. There are hints of the hippy, with Burnside's dreamy vocals supported by clanking banjos and vintage keyboards, a folksy psychedelia co-existing with a rusted electric guitar edge. Then, they cast in a measure of Hawaiian slide, and float deep into the mesmerising kitsch boudoirs of 1950s Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. A becalmed reverb suggests some of the quieter ballads produced by Brian Eno in the 1970s.

Homelife's ethereal pop manages to be accessible, whilst still being gently subverted by its words and musical diversions. Some of the lyrical sentiments are wilfully innocent, but then More Wine provides a stark turn towards a desolated perspective, set to a gloriously tumbling beat. Everywhere is another playfully disjointed standout, whilst Atlas is simply wafting, and once one overcomes the shock of Homelife's sudden style change, it's possible to revel in this fresh musical immersion.