Don’t panic, but Glaswegian four-piece [a]Appendix Out[/a] are situated deep within the folk tradition. The eerie wear of Ali Roberts‘ vocal vibrates at the centre of a slow-shimmering pile of spider-picked acoustics, slow-brushing drums and widescreen keyboards, creating a sound so spectral that it feels almost like they’re broadcasting over wires from another century.
Crucially, though, they bolster the folk tradition by dragging it howling into the next century, applying a post-Velvets glaze to their tales of ghost ships and lovers spurned. Drummer Tom Crossley plays with such a multi-limbed lightness of touch that the spirit of jazz titans such as Elvin Jones, John Coltrane‘s drummer, feels like a benign presence throughout.
The resultant freedoms open up whole shadowy areas, which the band investigates at length. Single chords are strung out for what seems like an eternity. Indeed, at times such a lugubrious weight seems to hang over the band that the whole atmosphere of the 13th Note basement is charged with a thick melancholy. They finish with a blasted cover of ‘Lowlands’ as recorded by enigmatic folk legend Anne Briggs. Nick Drake couldn’t have done a finer job.