Album Review: The Natural History Museum - Attenborough

Carol Keogh has one of the most unique and arresting voices in Ireland: fact. Whether singing with The Plague Monkeys, The Tycho Brahe, duetting with Jerry Fish or performing as a solo artist, Keogh has always entranced and enchanted. Composer and producer Dunk Murphy’s CV includes a stint with Dublin collective Ambulance, as well as a string of releases under the Sunken Foal moniker.

Keogh and Murphy have now pooled their talents as The Natural History Museum, and the results are rather lovely indeed. Throughout Attenborough, Murphy crafts a series of beguiling electro soundscapes, over which Keogh works her vocal magic.

That’s not to say that Murphy is only here to highlight his musical partner’s voice. Far from it. On ‘The Man I Love’, his busy rhythms and infectious melody forbid you from turning away, long after Keogh’s voice slips off into the electronic ether, while the lively math-rock workout of ‘Nightfisher/Australopithecus’ is impossible to listen to without at least playing air-drums.

Anyone who thinks electronica is cold and austere should give this album a listen. ‘The Likelihood of a Violent Death’ is a short but beautiful vignette of weird, layered vocals and gentle effects; ‘Stoat Safari’ is another neat and lovely electronic buzz, complete with choral vocals; while the gorgeous ‘Winter Bee’ is so warm and fuzzy, it’s like wrapping your ears in soft fur.

On ‘Daga Gadol’, the gently plucked guitars and tinkling synths contrast with the menacing thump and thrum of the bass (Dag Gadol is from the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament and roughly translates from Hebrew as ‘great fish’).

Elsewhere, the dramatic ‘Surfing the Severn Bore’ is the first song this listener has ever heard about the Gloucester estuary, where some brave and foolhardy souls do, indeed, surf the surge wave. And on ‘Ratty’, Keogh’s vocal pyrotechnics and the weird time signatures give it an experimental Kate Bush feel – a serious compliment.

With Attenborough, Keogh and Murphy combine forces to pretty stunning effect, each complementing and augmenting the talents of the other. In any language, that’s a result.

Key Track: ‘Winter Bee’

8/10

Out Now on Countersunk