Album Review: Trick Mist, The Hedge Maze And The Spade

On his sophomore record, songwriter and producer Gavin Murray, better known by his adopted moniker Trick Mist, set off on what the faint of heart might consider a fool’s errand: to tell a true story whilst exploring the surreal. Fear not. The Hedge Maze And The Spade comes alive by merging opposites, offering songs that hug and then rattle you; lyrics that twist a breadmaker into a whimsical artefact; and sounds that command all five senses. 

The catalyst for the project – the death of Murray’s grandmother – feeds a sonic storybook lush with detail from a lived life. In ‘Boring Bread,’ he paints a mundane childhood memory – going food shopping with his grandmother – as an otherworldly experience. Utilising samples taken from the supermarket and turning them into sounds you feel emanate throughout the body, Trick Mist connects a thread between what has been and all that can be. 

This is Trick Mist at his most imaginative, but also most thoughtful. ‘Flagbearer’ is both an exercise in texture and a direct insight into loss. He welcomes muddiness halfway through the album, falling into an endless black hole on ‘No Junction.’ Over plucked violin triplets and a stacked banjo, there’s a plot twist: a way to escape the seemingly endless void. The album closer ‘Willingdon Island’ is a whirlwind and with it, Trick Mist leaves us with a sense of hope.

Listen: ‘Willingdon Island’
Score: 8/10

Out now via Pizza Pizza Records. Read Trick Mist's new interview with Hot Press here

Read more album reviews in the new issue of Hot Press, starring The Coronas.