If pop music is all about timing, then Christopher Duncan appears, at least at first, to be in trouble. A July heatwave seems a spectacularly ill-suited release date for songs such as Say or Silence and Air, which boast choral passages so wintery you can practically hear Britain’s transport infrastructure collapsing. Then again, Duncan doesn’t appear to be interested in typical working methods. The 25-year-old Glaswegian is a classical composer who studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and in this debut he incorporates complex choral work into more pop settings. He seamlessly merges interweaving vocals with the sounds of pastoral English folk and lush, 4ADesque dreampop. On He Believes in Miracles and the title track, both of which have a psychedelic shimmer, you realise that Duncan is just as comfortable when creating music to suit sunnier climes, making this a magical record for all seasons.
