Josh Billings Voyage

This is a concept album of sorts. The methodical American multi¬instrumentalist Tim Eriksen, formerly of cult alt-folk rockers Cordelia’s Dad, has been assiduously honing his skills on the bajo sexto (a fat Mexican guitar with a deep, bassy sonority) and the Indian veena (plucked stringed instrument), which brings an international palette of sounds to a suite of songs concerning the inhabitants of a New England locale called Pumpkintown. The repertoire is almost entirely traditional, though Eriksen’s unusual voicings, stark and often dour sounding string arrangements de-familiarise the familiar. In instrumentation, delivery and atmosphere, it recalls the albums made by UK-based Cath & Phil Tyler. (Indeed, you can imagine they could make a fantastic album as a trio.)

‘Every Day is Three’, for example, has a stringed instrument of some kind being bowed – possibly a banjo, alongside high-pitched tones, that sound like fine china glasses being rubbed. The song is also known as ‘My Dearest Dear’: it’s a song of travel and farewell, and the drones give it a beautifully panoramic and windswept atmosphere. Eriksen even attempts a version of that old New Year’s Eve chestnut ‘Auld Lang Syne’. And almost gets away with it. Until, that is, the Eastenders-theme drums kick in and it decides to rock out in a horribly cheesy fashion that no amount of messy indie guitar and trumpet can rescue. Even enviably talented multi-instrumentalists with profoundly authentic-sounding baritone voices, it seems, can still suffer appalling lapses of taste. But it’s a measure of how good the album is that it doesn’t even begin to spoil your enjoyment of the rest of it.