"Days and nights" is the second album by Sudden Voices, a project led by Ben Morris, who returned to music last year after a hiatus of more than fifteen years.
Days and Nights builds on last year's debut album, adding a richer palette of instruments to the mix. Strings, mallets, reeds, and keys mingle with vocal harmonies, chants, and drones, creating a warm, organic psychedelia that rises and falls around bass-driven grooves. The songwriting is sharper, the arrangements more adventurous, and the abundance of ideas are drawn out into unique textures.
Influences range from the metronomic groove of krautrock, through to the space jazz of "Bitches Brew", via a clear fondness for Suicide, Talk Talk, and the Fall. The results are shot through with a DIY work ethic and low-fi sensibility, as well as an ear for a good tune. Songs are allowed to unfold at their own pace, though nothing outstays its welcome and the record clocks in at just over half an hour.
This cohesive base allows the songs to break out in unexpected directions as Morris experiments with texture. The taught rhythm of album opener "Why We Hide" gives way to the more ominous echoes of "Where You're Going" and the hypnotic pulse of "Going Out Staying In". The contrasts continue as the shimmering "Raptures and Roses" is followed by the deranged drones of "One Thousand Years" and the languid transcendence of "I Called You Back".
“Sudden Voices is a delight... there's a depth here, nothing is ever obvious but then again, nothing is too difficult, there's a delightful flow to it all, a delight in the crafted detail, the care taken.”
Organ Thing
“Morris has used his time away from music wisely, developing and stretching out his ideas, and on Sudden Voices' self-titled debut, he executes them to great effect in what is a fine return indeed.”
Sun 13
“A fascinating mash-up of jazz sensibility with Krautrock motorik on an album that mesmerizes with repetition.”
Bandcamp
| Track | Timing |
|---|---|
| Why We Hide | 03:08 |
| Where You're Going | 03:58 |
| No Place For Honest Men | 03:21 |
| Going Out Staying In | 03:29 |
| Galaxies | 02:48 |
| Raptures and Roses | 03:50 |
| One Thousand Years | 04:57 |
| I Called You Back | 04:16 |
| The World Turned Red | 01:56 |
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