Sheep, Dog & Wolf: Egospect (Lil' Chief)

 |   |  <1 min read

Sheep, Dog & Wolf: Problems/Canvas
Sheep, Dog & Wolf: Egospect (Lil' Chief)

On Auckland's Lil' Chief label which brought us the charming Tokey Tones a decade ago, the Brunettes, the barbed-pop of Princess Chelsea and more recently ex-Brunette Jonathan Bree's melancholy Primrose Path break-up album (and others), comes this debut from 19-year old former Aucklander Daniel McBride who's already been named “a young Sufjan Stevens” by The Guardian for his earlier EP Ablutophobia.

The name McBride (who has studied composition in Wellington, and writes and performs everything here) has chosen hints at the various personae this album adopts.

The songs are multi-faceted, rarely rest in one melodic place, and adopt mood swings between off-kilter electronica, multi-tracked vocals over shifting time signatures, pastoral folk, minimalism and multi-layered arrangements for horns, voices and guitars.

Lyrically there's emotional claustrophobia and frustration in abundance (“There are problems, I've tried but I can't look away”) which – coupled to ebb'n'flow arrangements – have a neatly unsettling effect.

But, musically sophisticated though this is, it doesn't make for easy entry. In one piece he admits he can't be everyone's masterpiece, but is trying hard to please.

This isn't familiarly cute or clever Lil' Chief pop, more an arthouse album-cum-calling card which announces a talent which might need to reign itself in for wider acceptance . . . but here offers a shape-shifting, mind-moving headphone experience.

The years may be kind to this.

Interested in challenging pop like this? See here.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Greg Trooper: The Williamsburg Affair (52 Shakes)

Greg Trooper: The Williamsburg Affair (52 Shakes)

According to his website, country-rocker Trooper recorded these songs with his touring band 15 years ago in a Brooklyn studio in just four days, then he moved back to Nashville and the tapes were... > Read more

Irving: Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (Rhythmethod)

Irving: Death in the Garden, Blood on the Flowers (Rhythmethod)

Because my record collection has such wayward but much loved albums by bands as diverse as the Unforgiven (spaghetti western rock), the Shoes (power pop), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (early... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

House of Shem: Island Vibration (Isaac)

House of Shem: Island Vibration (Isaac)

If it's true, as I am told, this album went to number one on the New Zealand charts it confirms two things: in this part of the Pacific we love them familiar summertime reggae grooves; and also... > Read more

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, a film by JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, 2009 (Madman DVD)

VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, a film by JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, 2009 (Madman DVD)

In the first volume of his projected trilogy about the history of his homeland -- Australians: Origins to Eureka, published 2009 -- the writer Thomas Keneally writes of the first Irish convicts... > Read more