Kidnapped By Neptune

Either Scout Niblett doesn’t believe in making things easy for music reviewers or else the sleeve notes for her third album disappeared somewhere between HP Towers and my house, because my copy of Kidnapped By Neptune doesn’t even have song titles, let alone lyrics. What we do know is that the legendary Steve Albini was at the production desk, and Scout (vocals, drums, guitar, piano), was joined in studio by Jason Koukournis on drums and Chris Saligoe on guitars and bass. It’s pretty lo-fi, many of the 15 songs starting with simple guitar and Niblett’s unique vocal wail, before being joined by the rest of the instruments in something of a rush to the finale. Indeed, most of the arrangements are highly unusual but never less than interesting as the tracks range from sparse to noisy, innovative to indulgent.