Michael Canning: Chirality (Ghostjogger/digital outlets)

Further to our recent installment of releases from Thokei Tapes out of Germany comes this new album by expat Kiwi writer/producer Michael Canning, now based in England.

A previous album by him Wise Woman's Hill Rd was released on Thokei and we reviewed it at that time noting its “left field but approachable dark and crafted songs”.

That assessment still stands for the 10 songs on this album which opens with the mysterious and slippery experimental pop of Declare with spare, analogue percussion, electric guitar and electronics behind his surreptitious vocal.

Elsewhere there is chugging alt.Seventies pop-rock (Manifold, Laissez Faire), an effectively quirky but enticing instrumental in The Florist with trumpet (you could imagine it in a black'n'white, late Sixties crime thriller), the dreamy Umwelt, the Twilight Zone allusions and shapeshifting of Cheshire Cat Press and the ambitious progression of Chocolate Box from barely-there delicacy to the increasing intensity of the saxophone which appears in the final third.

Canning has a limited vocal range so often defaults to a kind of declamatory speaking style (Doughnut House) and therefore relies on the diversity of his music to do the heavy lifting.

And the angular, unexpected rhythmic and melodic twists of his music is the real strength here.

You suspect this could be his aural calling card for independent filmmakers.

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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here