Directions Out Of Town
Ambitious electro-pop and synth maverick Finlay Shakespeare saves one of his best solo albums for one of his last, placing complex original synthesis at the service of puristic pop songwriting with results comparable to Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, He Said, John Maus, David Sylvian
In a distinctive voice that’s only grown more confident across his five years of albums for Editions Mego, Alter, and his label, Goto, Bristol’s Finlay Shakespeare fronts the highly impressive ‘Directions Out of Town’. Purportedly the last LP under his own name, it’s the ultimate example of his lifetime spent absorbing and emulating the synth-driven pops of his parents’ record collection from the ground up, literally building his own custom analog machines in order to best express the sound in his head.
Dwelling on timeless themes of loss - personal, geographic, political, cultural - and the “general decay of everything”, Shakespeare adapts extra-musical cues from structural film in a process of getting to the heart of the matter, beyond metaphor, with self-evidently effective results that sparks with the electricity of creation, and emotion negotiated via wires. Whilst we can make clear comparisons between ‘Away’ and Peter Gabriel’s early ‘80s power chops, or draw parallels with ‘Go Back’ and Vince Clarke’s Erasure works, the eight songs brim with a singular touch and uncanny valley familiarity that places Shakespeare in a contemporary field with the likes of John Maus, in terms of reviewing and mimicking the past without resorting to pastiche.
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Ambitious electro-pop and synth maverick Finlay Shakespeare saves one of his best solo albums for one of his last, placing complex original synthesis at the service of puristic pop songwriting with results comparable to Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, He Said, John Maus, David Sylvian
In a distinctive voice that’s only grown more confident across his five years of albums for Editions Mego, Alter, and his label, Goto, Bristol’s Finlay Shakespeare fronts the highly impressive ‘Directions Out of Town’. Purportedly the last LP under his own name, it’s the ultimate example of his lifetime spent absorbing and emulating the synth-driven pops of his parents’ record collection from the ground up, literally building his own custom analog machines in order to best express the sound in his head.
Dwelling on timeless themes of loss - personal, geographic, political, cultural - and the “general decay of everything”, Shakespeare adapts extra-musical cues from structural film in a process of getting to the heart of the matter, beyond metaphor, with self-evidently effective results that sparks with the electricity of creation, and emotion negotiated via wires. Whilst we can make clear comparisons between ‘Away’ and Peter Gabriel’s early ‘80s power chops, or draw parallels with ‘Go Back’ and Vince Clarke’s Erasure works, the eight songs brim with a singular touch and uncanny valley familiarity that places Shakespeare in a contemporary field with the likes of John Maus, in terms of reviewing and mimicking the past without resorting to pastiche.
Ambitious electro-pop and synth maverick Finlay Shakespeare saves one of his best solo albums for one of his last, placing complex original synthesis at the service of puristic pop songwriting with results comparable to Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, He Said, John Maus, David Sylvian
In a distinctive voice that’s only grown more confident across his five years of albums for Editions Mego, Alter, and his label, Goto, Bristol’s Finlay Shakespeare fronts the highly impressive ‘Directions Out of Town’. Purportedly the last LP under his own name, it’s the ultimate example of his lifetime spent absorbing and emulating the synth-driven pops of his parents’ record collection from the ground up, literally building his own custom analog machines in order to best express the sound in his head.
Dwelling on timeless themes of loss - personal, geographic, political, cultural - and the “general decay of everything”, Shakespeare adapts extra-musical cues from structural film in a process of getting to the heart of the matter, beyond metaphor, with self-evidently effective results that sparks with the electricity of creation, and emotion negotiated via wires. Whilst we can make clear comparisons between ‘Away’ and Peter Gabriel’s early ‘80s power chops, or draw parallels with ‘Go Back’ and Vince Clarke’s Erasure works, the eight songs brim with a singular touch and uncanny valley familiarity that places Shakespeare in a contemporary field with the likes of John Maus, in terms of reviewing and mimicking the past without resorting to pastiche.
Ambitious electro-pop and synth maverick Finlay Shakespeare saves one of his best solo albums for one of his last, placing complex original synthesis at the service of puristic pop songwriting with results comparable to Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, He Said, John Maus, David Sylvian
In a distinctive voice that’s only grown more confident across his five years of albums for Editions Mego, Alter, and his label, Goto, Bristol’s Finlay Shakespeare fronts the highly impressive ‘Directions Out of Town’. Purportedly the last LP under his own name, it’s the ultimate example of his lifetime spent absorbing and emulating the synth-driven pops of his parents’ record collection from the ground up, literally building his own custom analog machines in order to best express the sound in his head.
Dwelling on timeless themes of loss - personal, geographic, political, cultural - and the “general decay of everything”, Shakespeare adapts extra-musical cues from structural film in a process of getting to the heart of the matter, beyond metaphor, with self-evidently effective results that sparks with the electricity of creation, and emotion negotiated via wires. Whilst we can make clear comparisons between ‘Away’ and Peter Gabriel’s early ‘80s power chops, or draw parallels with ‘Go Back’ and Vince Clarke’s Erasure works, the eight songs brim with a singular touch and uncanny valley familiarity that places Shakespeare in a contemporary field with the likes of John Maus, in terms of reviewing and mimicking the past without resorting to pastiche.
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Ambitious electro-pop and synth maverick Finlay Shakespeare saves one of his best solo albums for one of his last, placing complex original synthesis at the service of puristic pop songwriting with results comparable to Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, He Said, John Maus, David Sylvian
In a distinctive voice that’s only grown more confident across his five years of albums for Editions Mego, Alter, and his label, Goto, Bristol’s Finlay Shakespeare fronts the highly impressive ‘Directions Out of Town’. Purportedly the last LP under his own name, it’s the ultimate example of his lifetime spent absorbing and emulating the synth-driven pops of his parents’ record collection from the ground up, literally building his own custom analog machines in order to best express the sound in his head.
Dwelling on timeless themes of loss - personal, geographic, political, cultural - and the “general decay of everything”, Shakespeare adapts extra-musical cues from structural film in a process of getting to the heart of the matter, beyond metaphor, with self-evidently effective results that sparks with the electricity of creation, and emotion negotiated via wires. Whilst we can make clear comparisons between ‘Away’ and Peter Gabriel’s early ‘80s power chops, or draw parallels with ‘Go Back’ and Vince Clarke’s Erasure works, the eight songs brim with a singular touch and uncanny valley familiarity that places Shakespeare in a contemporary field with the likes of John Maus, in terms of reviewing and mimicking the past without resorting to pastiche.