Martin Duffy 'Assorted Promenades' - Album Review

You could be forgiven for expecting the debut solo album from Primal Scream’s keyboard whizz Martin Duffy to be made up of bruising electro or even dirty, scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll. Especially when you consider that Duffy was also a crucial part of ‘80s Birmingham alt. rockers, Felt, and is a more-or-less permanent fixture in Tim Burgess’ touring band. But atmospheric piano tinkering? Gentle mood pieces? Surely not.
Confounding expectations, Assorted Promenades, released on Burgess’ O Genesis label, offers 16 tracks that veer from the cerebral mood music of ‘Promenading’, where the piano floats in and out of earshot amid a wealth of chimes, to the feelgood fairground ride that is ‘Number Six’.
For the most part, these are short vignettes (some under a minute), as Duffy follows a neo-classical muse, with the occasional foray into Eno-esque ambient meanderings (‘Section II’, ‘Hiawah La La’, ‘The Very Eye Of Night’). While a number of Duffy’s classical allsorts can veer off into the realms of background music (‘Repeats’, ‘Uke’, ‘Snowbound’), some, like the starkly gorgeous ‘Hymn’ (one minute and 19 seconds of transient beauty), are genuinely affecting, with the result that you wish they could stay a little longer. Both ‘Section’ and ‘Guitar Sonnet’ are more fully-realised, with dramatic swathes of strings, tinkling bells and perfectly plucked guitars, which sound like they could be part of a film score.
Fascinating in parts, as the title suggests, Assorted Promenades is something of a mixed bag.
OUT NOW John Walshe