Album Review: April Four – Amendment
Occasionally, two distinct masses will encounter one another and fabricate something quite wondrous. The sun setting into the ocean. The antlers of a deer reflecting in the moonlight. And recently, in the Scottish lo-fi, downtempo community (one must surely exist!), a communion of similar minds, talents and charm finally came to fruition in the blended soundscapes of Lucia Morales Urcola (Lu) and Brian Docherty (Doc) to create April Four.
April Four’s debut album ‘Amendment’ was released into the world on July 30th by The Barne Society, and a taster from the record was lapped up by audiences attending Glasgow’s Bloc+ and Stirling’s Tolbooth.
Doc’s renowned melancholic solo projects The Wayne Devro Set and Scientific Support Department do not veer too far from this world, but the addition of Lu’s haunting falsetto and quixotic lyricism offers fans of this underrated music genre something to mop up and soak in.
Sounding like early-Grimes on opener Amapola, Lu’s gentle but impassioned vocals soar over synthesized accordion and keys. This stream of consciousness is visible throughout the record, with Lu’s poetry and layered vocals threaded through songs like Light and the pulsating Eden, yet treated with tenderness and space to allow the lyrics to breathe. The music must always be secondary to clever writing and delivery. The latter song was a stand-out in Bloc+ and lyrics such as “I see angels break their halo’s” and “If you’d been at Eden that day, you’d have been the first to bite” delve into apparent religious territory and imagery, ploughing depth into the meaning of the songwriter’s words.
The storytelling aspect of the album, and dreamy one-word titles (Daisy, Fairy, Lullaby) coat over a pained history, or at least an imagined sorrow. However, this isn’t a record for licking one’s wounds to. There is an edge and the toxicity of gaslighting is apparent in Felt, while the promiscuity of Eastwood (“We can keep this casual”) comes to the fore when the relationship reaches its conclusion. All the time, Doc’s minimalistic keys and film-score soundscapes wash over or rumble under these poems, enhancing the sentiments.
There is experimental aspects to the record with Lu’s first language (Spanish) used on the bass-driven Shelter, while the journalling spoken word aspect runs into the likes of Daisy (“We ran into each other at the grocery store the other week”) and the longest track on the record, Fairy.
In closing track and recently-released single Lullaby, the coming of the two worlds is most explosive. From the gentle, atmospheric introduction morphing into a serene digitalized beat, Doc’s repeated backing vocals under Lu’s story gets under the skin. One lyric appeared to wrap up the album perfectly – “If this landscape were built with words, it would be a poem; and if this landscape were a sound, it would be honey to our ears”.
This minimalistic and joyous honouring of ambient rhythm is alive and welcome in a heavily-saturated market of superficial gibberish. Listeners are advised to take some time to move outside of the anxiety-driven chaos of the city and find a space where the quiet reigns supreme. Somewhere between the owls and the moon in the countryside. Here, you’ll find April Four – and Amendment is here just in time to correct the world and be the change you didn’t know you were looking for.
Purchase the digital album or CD here!
Stephen Watt