Thom Sonny Green’s day job is drumming for Alt-J, but you shouldn’t hold it against him. His surprising debut solo album, High Anxiety, is the result of three years of relentless touring and recording in hotel rooms, parking sombre electronic ideas that wouldn’t work on the mothership. These 21 instrumental tracks are named after cities or one-word associations, and range affectively all the way from the paranoid to the merely jittery (Green suffers from anxiety and a hearing disorder). Those with standout melodies – Vienna, say, or Oslo – recall Boards of Canada, while Ping is lush and orchestral. Overlong, and sounding a little like a lot of other things, High Anxiety nonetheless reveals an unexpected talent hidden in plain sight.
