Where did the night fall

UNKLE’s 1995 debut, Psyence Fiction boasted a who’s who of guest vocalists (Thom Yorke, Richard Ashcroft etc), plus DJ Shadow as fully signed-up member. Fifteen years on, former Mo’Wax boss James Lavelle doesn’t quite have the same star-pulling power (he and Shadow have long since fallen out, with Lavelle accusing his former chum of hogging too much credit for his contribution to the project). Indeed, aside from ex-Screaming Tree man Mark Lanegan, the cameos on Where Did The Night Fall are strictly z-list. As it turns out, this is actually to the benefit of the record, which, in short-hand, might be described as ‘UNKLE-goes-indie’. Coming on like a cross between Moby and the the Jesus and Mary Chain, Baltimore’s Big In Japan front the disembodied ‘The Answer’ ; elsewhere there’s a whiff of 80s schmindie-core on The Black Angels’ ‘Natural Selection’, whilst ‘Follow Me Down’ (with Sleepy Sun) sounds like Mercury Rev gene-spliced with the Cocteau Twins . Previously, UNKLE’s reliance on a rotating cast led to music that felt unmoored and over-thought. Here, however, the thematic coherence holds together throughout. There are a lot of the old trademark clanking synths and doomy drum machines, true. Ultimately, however, you can’t help suspecting that Night Fall... marks the point in Lavelle’s career where he outs himself as old fashioned indie softie.