Connected By Landscapes
"When you find yourself on a lonely Sunday morning with your lover gone, the rain pelting against your window, an empty fridge, lying in bed not able to move your limbs because of an over-powering grief, this is the album to play..." (Vital Weekly)
Small Town Boredom (2003-2011)
Small Town Boredom were Fraser McGowan and Colin Morrison (with Jonnie Common, Gavin Crawford, Richard Kengen & Bartholomew Owl).
Their seminal debut album of quiet melancholic lo-fi torch songs, ‘Autumn Might Have Hope’, was released by The Remains Of My Estate in late 2007. The unwavering band and label ethos 'to make something of beauty' meant that the record was released as a limited vinyl LP with download, resulting in minimal promotion but warm acclaim.
A soundtrack for intense self-reflection, it forged affecting melodies from delicate instrumentation, subtle field recordings and lo-fi ambient experiments.
Songs were achingly paced and underpinned by dark, confessional lyrics, sung with uniquely heavy-hearted vocals which were described by one critic as "exuding a kind of lethargy of broken dreams".
Their second album, 'Notes From The Infirmary', was released in 2010 and returns to the fragile arrangements and hushed vocals that made their debut such a vital record. However the sound is more focused, starker, and fraught. Following the warm melancholic haze of ‘the debut, ‘Notes From The Infirmary’ feels immersed in the cold light of a new day, with anguished electric guitars and percussion, and culminating in a fall-out of feedback, screaming vocals, and finally lethargy and hopelessness.