Unkle - Where Did TheNight Fall

Thu 6th May, 2010 in Music Reviews

Longstanding Unkle main man James Lavelle is an innovator. Never one to be pigeonholed, even from the group’s earliest incarnations with fellow founding member Tim Goldsworthy, Lavelle was always an adventurous musical visionary, pushing their earlier trip-hop and house sounds into much more eclectic territory.

Sound-shifting as fluidly as the band’s line-up (Goldsworthy’s departure led to the 1998 DJ Shadow collaboration, Psyence Fiction, then the more lush electronic sounds of Never, Never Land and the rock-focused album War Stories with Richard File), each of Unkle’s four albums bears its own distinct hallmarks. Having settled on the line-up of Lavelle and Pablo Clements since the cinematically inspired End Titles… Stories for Film – another of Unkle’s genre-crossing triumphs – their fifth studio album again takes its lead from the same sensibility that dictated their more recent releases.

Stripped down to the elements, Where The Night Falls could be just another electro-rock record, but that would be looking at it much too simplistically. Unkle’s approach to their music has always been much more exploratory. The rock and electronica-fused elements, the minor chords and haunting melodies, the loud/quiet dynamic and the guest vocalists and collaborators are ever present, but the band continues to expand their scope by finding more interesting ways to marry them.

In the past, Unkle’s guest roster has included the likes of Ian Brown, Josh Homme, Thom Yorke and The Duke Spirit. But aside from a few instantly recognisable names ( Mark Lanegan lends his distinctly husky vocals to album closer lullaby Another Night Out ), a more obscure array of guests lend their talents to this record.

Sleepy Sun give Follow Me Down a swirly psychedelic, folk-ish vibe with an underlying tribal feel. Singer Rachel Williams’ voice containing traces of Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, especially when she repeatedly wails “Follow me down” in the chorus.

The guitar-driven folk continues on The Black Angels collaboration Natural Selection, which also showcases Unkle’s fascination with using vocal textures to great effect, often layering them, filtering them through effects and harmonising to create a dreamy, emotive quality.

In recent years, the pair have become a formidable live force, and it’s not hard to imagine songs like the gloriously dense Caged Bird, (where pulsating bass lines and richly emotional sound-scapes emphasise Katrina Ford’s powerfully expressive vocals), or The Healing (featuring Gavin Clarke singing over a triumphantly dense instrumentation with crashing drums and soaring strings) being positively mind-blowing to hear on stage.

Where the Night Falls is moody, atmospheric, dark, jarring and beautiful all at once. In many ways no song, like each album, sounds exactly like the other, yet they all manage to sound consistently like Unkle – and that’s where the brilliance of this band lies.