New Sepia Sound

In music, as in life, can it not be said that it is better to try and fail than not to try at all? At a time when so many musicians seem content to take the easy option, artists such as John Haggis are to be treasured.

Not that New Sepia Sound is a resounding success by any means. Nor is it a failure, as it transmits an ambition that can only be applauded. Things don’t begin in the best fashion with a couple of tracks of aimless, ambient jazz wanderings but the album is snapped sharply into focus by the sublime ‘Mother Rotolló’s Cooking’, essentially more of the same but given an extra dimension by the sampled voice of Liam Clancy, a distinguished, commanding presence from another time that sounds entirely in place here amongst the modern technology. If Nitin Sawney were doing it, we’d call it genius (he is, we are) so why not this?

New Sepia Sound seems aimed at the post-clubbing chillout crowd with its dreamy, floaty nature but wakes you up with a bang with the guitar driven ‘Fast Cars, Devils And Johnny Cash’ and frantic ‘God Ain’t Gonna’, the only hint of the man’s past in Cork’s Emperors Of Ice Cream. Normal service is resumed with the mournful ‘Night Wood’, bringing proceedings to an eerie close.

Goodness only knows what it all means (the record apparently started life as a film soundtrack) but, for the most part, this is a tremendous debut.