Contain – Ian William Craig (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Some music is about energy; some about a more chilled delivery but Contain takes the latter into whole new and deeper territory.  But it is more than just relaxed in its approach, more than restrained in its delivery; it takes sonorous, minimal music into wonderfully elemental realms. The voice is strikingly beautiful and the piano plaintive and heart aching, but there is something otherworldly about the result. It’s an over used word but here no other will do.

Accentuated by background washes of galactic interference and the creaking of tectonic plates, Contain goes beyond the formal structures of song and at times sounds like the echo of the big bang or the noise of sand dunes shifting. It is haunting, ethereal and stunning and channels the minute and the majestic in equal measure. Craig proves that when you clear all the unnecessary clutter away from the process of song writing, what beats away at the heart of the remains is more powerful and more resonant than you could ever imagine.