I love the air of detachment that exudes from the heart of Henry Bateman’s music. For whilst Ready or Not is lyrically all about trying to form a specific emotional tie, musically it sits in its own space, slightly away from the usual music conventions. It acknowledges pop but does so in a languid and sonorous fashion, it plays with a hazy, indie folk vibe but pushes it more towards a dreamlike dimension, a distant guitar is used to add some psychedelic, west coast detail but not enough to pin it too closely to the genre.
Mother revels in Damien Rice style acoustic atmospheres, shimmering guitar cascades through the empty space and the ethereal boy/girl vocal duelling just underlines the idea. But then if artists take inspiration from his drifting and minimalist style then I for one am not going to argue. Nope. Not one bit.
