Winter Sun (Vinyl) - By:Stuart Moxham - Model Number: PICI0071LP5

Description

Few artists arrive as compellingly yet elusively as did Stuart Moxham upon the startling debut of Young Marble Giant™s sole studio album, Colossal Youth.
Initial excitement was thrust upon the young Alison Statton, who sang songs written by Stuart with a couple of exceptions. The unaffected tone of her voice was in steep contrast to the typical goings-on in that still quite punky time, but it was what she sang that fully sold it. Moxham™s lyrics were both intensely personal and woefully oblique. There seemed to be a sort of story in there. Confusingly, that story often felt like it was Alison™s rather than the fellow who™d penned it. The unexpected miracle a deal with Rough Trade and the album™s subsequent success had the band stymied for a second act and it wasn™t long before the group disintegrated, although circumstances often brought members and a few of their peers - among them Debbie Pritchard, Spike Williams, and
a third Moxham brother, Drew. - Phil Moxham was the band™s bassist - together in odd combinations and pairings.
None of the three YMG members have been especially prolific, but it™s Stuart™s career that has seemed the least straightforward, as if he™d wondered, What to do when your debut is a nearly perfect artefact? In the case of his first solo full-length in thirty years, Stuart took the unusual step of entering an alien studio with American producer Dave Trumfio (who™s also the leader of Pulsars and bassist for Mekons) and allowing him to decide what tracks (of a large number submitted by Stuart) to record, and how they™d be orchestrated.
Or not. In this case - save for the writing and composing - it™s really Dave™s album as much as Stuart™s. The tracks went with Dave back to LA, where they were mixed, a few parts added (including subtle backing vocals from the incredible Linda Smith) . . . then later unmixed and reworked by John Henderson and Roni Ayala back in Valencia. Both versions will be made available, and both have a compelling cohesion missing from some of Stuart™s work since YMG. Stuart™s minimalism is quite intact, the range of emotions quite wide. There are few artists operating today like Stuart Moxham, a composer of the upper echelon of innate talent who combines avant-garde ideas with deceptively forthright personal lyrics, solid hooks, ambience and vaguely off-centre instrumentation
which defies the casual marketplace as confoundingly as it ever did to the underground, whatever that is these days. His songs have been admired and / covered by everyone from Lush to Kurt Cobain, adaptations in Japanese and even a French-language hit by Etienne Daho, adaptations by Hole, Galaxie 500, Magnetic Fields, Belle And Sebastian and many others - but a new Stuart Moxham album is a special kind of joy.

Label
Tiny Global Productions

Tracks & Genre

SOUTHBOUND