Studio Zoo

Thud. Thud. Twang. Those are the noises which became familiar to the ardent fans – and procrastinators – who tuned in to catch the live stream of Newton Faulkner’s home studio as he recorded his latest album, Studio Zoo. The dreadlocked Surrey songwriter meticulously tweaked acoustic riffs with astonishing ease, showing off his immense talent, at times remaining unsure of how use it best. Until now, Faulkner has had a reputation for laid-back folk, topping the UK album charts with debut Hand Built By Robots and Write It On Your Skin. However, his latest LP marks a distinct shift towards a more personal, reflective sound.

It opens familiarly enough, with some rather sweet harmonics accompanied by the slap and thump of his trademark percussive guitar playing on ‘Where to Start’. But this is an otherwise restrained opening; the songs seemingly tinkered with, rather than fully formed. Perhaps a product of the intimate home studio environment, Faulkner sometimes seems too engrossed in intricate fretplay to flesh out these opening tracks; you can’t help but wait for a rhythmic crescendo or a swell of vocals, though no such augmentations arrive. Instead, Studio Zoo rewards the patient listener.

If the album’s opening tracks begin tentatively, its finale leaves you reeling with its sheer intimacy.

It’s difficult to get to grips with at first, but there is some clarity to be found amongst the gloom. ‘At the Seams’ introduces Faulkner’s first wavering bout of falsetto as he grapples with crushing self-doubt, and his impressive vocal range makes another showing on ‘Indecisive’, following the heartfelt bellow of “is there nothing that I can say to change your mind?”. The bright strums and claps of ‘Losing Ground’ may be the closest thing to the instant melodic punch heard on the likes of ‘Dream Catch Me’, but even here, Faulkner’s tone is unflinchingly morose, crying “why is luck never on my side?”

Yet it is among the closing tracks that Faulkner shapes this misery into its most palatable form. On ‘Innocent’, he imbues lines like “I don’t deserve your kindness anyway” with the kind of hopeful sadness mastered by the likes of Bright Eyes. Album closer ‘Orange Skies’ sees him reign in the experimentation further to produce a real contender as a sing-a-long, iPhones-in-the-air festival anthem, choral interludes and all. If the album’s opening tracks begin tentatively, its finale leaves you reeling with its sheer intimacy.

Based on first impressions alone, it would be easy to write this album off as a plaintive misstep by an artist exploring the depths of his sound. But Studio Zoo houses all manner of beasts. While carrying on the easy, folksy charm and guitar trickery of his previous work, there is more room than usual here for strikingly honest introspection. As live stream viewers watched him sitting in his home studio, trying to coerce steel strings into melodies, you got the impression that, for better or worse, this is Sam Newton Battenberg Faulkner at his most unfiltered.

Similar To: Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Ben Howard

MP3: ‘Innocent’, ‘Losing Ground’