It’s an album that barely raises its head from its surreal slumber, but there’s not a second of its 43 minutes in which the soundscape created by C Duncan feels sluggish. The Glaswegian composer, multi-instrumentalist and graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland creates his artwork and produces his music in his own studio; an insular creative process that results in a contained universe of ambience and eerie euphoria.
The follow-up to his Mercury-nominated album Architect is inspired by the lurching intensity of The Twilight Zone but also shares the melancholy indie atmospherics of Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Broadcast and Air. Do I Hear? certainly has all the rose-tinted romance of the French duo’s cinematic single Playground Love. There is also an innocence to these songs, a spirituality that, in a year of bold musical statements and political upheaval, provides a soothing tonic; an escapist episode of spectacular beauty.
