Peter Delaney: Witch Bottle

Singer-songwriter Peter Delaney is in decidedly lo-fi mode on Witch Bottle, with finger-picked ukulele being the chief accompaniment to his lonesome voice. Songs such as ‘My Eyes Are Blessed’ and ‘Closing The Fold’ showcase a rare lyrical intensity (eg. “Deprive me of the perfume of life and love’s excess”), while his melodies trip lightly over the almost hypnotic rhythms.
Singing in a near falsetto voice, comparisons with Bon Iver are hard to avoid, although Delaney’s cracked tones come across as even more fragile than Justin Vernon’s. His song titles are imaginative too, if not always the most radio-friendly, with ‘My Rat Brain’, ‘Sleep Nausea’ and ‘To His Dying Son’ betraying a melancholic world view that doesn’t exactly cheer the soul. Unfortunately there’s also a sameness to the arrangements which slows the record up in parts. The epic ‘A Drab Remaking’ clocks in at over seven minutes, making it hard work, though on a song like ‘Deep Roots’, where the vocal is reverbed and double-tracked, he does achieve a certain spellbinding quality. Idiosyncratic to the core, Delaney is well worth checking out.

Key Track: 'Deep Roots'