For those unfamiliar with the pagan-pop revival of 2012, Becky Hawley, Emily Lansley and Lucy Mercer were the wildly imaginative Liverpudlian trio whose debut glistened amid the beige of the New Boring. For their second album, they’ve recalibrated their inherently odd music for a new visionary adventure: this time it’s less muddied by the woodland and more indebted to 1950s exotica – herein are fabricated, fantastical and wildly colourful imaginings about the future and the universe. A lot of existential questions are asked, but few answers are given, which only adds to the whirring charm of this curious music. From the dusty prog of This Time to funk, krautrock and folk, Stealing Sheep never stick to a singular sound – but the one constant is a slightly creepy quality; always beautiful but sometimes a little disconcerting. At a time where the word “random” has been diluted to mean anything from the genuinely surreal to a misplaced spoon, it’s a relief to find something so instinctively strange.
