Remember a time when everything musical fitted neatly into very strict sonic groupings? When you belonged to, and identified with, a certain musical tribe? When you were required to fight for your cause and be dismissive of music that didn’t fit with your tribal allegiances? Where demarkations were strict and genric divides insurmountable?
Horrible wasn’t it?
I mention this because Mr Lost makes music that would have had a tough time fitting into that world. Experimental, dancey and infectious yet strange, out there and avant-garde. Too weird for your average pop fan, not driven enough for the dance diva. Sonic “Avant Gardening” at its most fertile. What I’m saying, in a tortured and round about way is that We’re A Long Way From Home is an album that could really only exist today. Here. Now.
Tracks such as Bit Empty are wonderfully glitchy, dubby and pulsating, with oases of chiming charm helping to lighten the load, I Still Love You runs on light and shimmering pop-dance grooves and Somethings Never Change has the sort of trip-hop groove and alt-funk vibes that put you in mind of the likes of Massive Attack or Portishead.
Three plays in and I still don’t know where it fits into the modern sonic landscape. But that is the great thing about the sonic landscape… no one cares.
