An all-acoustic album is perhaps a surprising arrival from a musician who started out in electronica and dance music, worked as a DJ, produced for Elbow, has co-written with artists as diverse as Professor Green, Amy Winehouse (“Half Times”) and Banks, and who has collaborated with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on concert arrangements of six of his songs.
Bloom Innocent – Acoustic is Fin Greenall’s 10th outing in 18 years and since Biscuits for Breakfast (2006) he’s been working with bassist Guy Whittaker and drummer Tim Thornton. Both Greenall himself and his band are known as Fink, and he’s acknowledged that his musical career has been “quite a journey” – so far. The new album is “a fresh sound”, a way to “put more music into my record”, about the songs in their “pure form”. Fink’s voice and guitar are way out front, surrounded by a huge echo, and surely the roots of Bloom Innocent – Acoustic can be traced back to his Cornish childhood and the only thing at home he wasn’t allowed to touch – his dad’s prized Martin guitar. He now has several of his own.
Produced by sonic mastermind Flood, whose own career is no less eclectic (Smashing Pumpkins, Nick Cave, Depeche Mode and U2), Bloom Innocent – Acoustic is “an acoustic reimagining” of last year’s Bloom Innocent and it’s mesmeric. Sometimes it feels like movie music without a movie – the video for “We Watch the Stars”, the first song to be recorded and laid down in one take, suggests a wordless natural world documentary. It’s almost ethereal. So too the title track, which opens with an insistently strummed guitar – a hint of retro, perhaps even a hint of Richie Havens.
“Out Loud”, Fink’s carefully placed vocal over picked guitar and box drum, is another stand-out. “That’s How I See You Now” is built over a percussive guitar ostinato figure, the soulful vocal coming in short bursts – you can hear Fink’s electronica roots. “Rocking Chair”, a melange of sound built around an insistent drum motif, is bluesy and evocative.
In addition to voice and guitar, Fink also plays piano, keyboards and effects, plus percussion, with Thornton on acoustic guitar, piano and percussion, and Whitaker on fretless acoustic bass, percussion and effects, both also adding backing vocals. There are no overdubs, and the album occupies a hinterland where folk, blues and electronica meet, melting into one another as the temperature rises on a drive down Highway 61. Bloom Innocent – Acoustic is the sonic equivalent of a road movie.
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