Enquiries, subtitled ‘Concerning Number, Modernity And Other Interesting Subjects’, is the debut solo release from Lloyd James of Naevus ( who are amusingly described on the Tourette Records MySpace page as an ‘acoustic modernist beat combo’). Given that Lloyd is the main songwriter for Naevus, the obvious uh, enquiry to make about Enquiries is whether it sounds very different to Naevus, and the answer is yes, it rally, really does. The majority of the tracks on Enquiries are very abstract and experimental, far from the conventional pop-song structures usually employed by Naevus. Enquiries was performed and recorded entirely by Lloyd, with the instrumentation used including keyboard, trombone, mandolin, ocarina, stylophone in addition to the usual guitar, bass, drums and vocals.

The opening track, ‘Dancing’, is a frantic, repetititious improvised piano instrumental with jazzy trombone floating over the pounding piano notes – this is more like the avant-garde classical of minimalist composers like Steve Reich than anything resembling pop or folk music. ‘Turn That Light Off’ is jagged, dissonant post-punk, with a heavy motorik beat and clanging, squealing electric guitar, something like early Swans or Big Black.

After these two tracks, it’s obvious that this album is simply not going to settle down into a predictable, safe groove, and sure enough, ‘Tongue In The Wind’ rings the changes yet again, conjuring cosmic Krautrock-style ambient out of drifting, gauzy layers of synth chords, treated mandolin and distant chiming percussion. ‘Farmer Duncan’ is probably the only track on Enquiries that could pass for a Naevus song, with warm, strummed acoustic guitar, a stylophone melody standing in for Joanne Owens’ accordion, and Lloyd’s unmistakable singing voice relating a narrative based on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. This song is thematically related to ‘Meat On Meat’, one of the strongest songs on the last Naevus album, Relatively Close To The Sea (reviewed elsewhere on Judas Kiss). It’d be interesting to hear a Naevus version of ‘Farmer Duncan’ some time, just to compare and contrast.

After the mellow pop of ‘Farmer Duncan’, however, we’re treated to ‘Dead Numbers’, which is the longest (ten minutes) and most difficult track on Enquiries, an impenetrable thicket of circuit buzz, freeform electric guitar and what sounds like samples of brass instruments. Lloyd describes this as ‘aleatory’, a musical term for compositions in which some elements are left to chance, a technique much employed by modernist composers like John Cage. You have been warned…

‘Superman's Cave’ is much less daunting, being an ambient instrumental improvised around synth chords which has an introspective, soundtrack feel. ‘Modern Evening’ fuses the experimental and rock factions which have been vying for supremacy on the album thus far, opening with wan, defeated-sounding synth and developing into a slow, jazzy rock ballad with treated vocals and some odd little popping sounds bubbling away in the background, rather like some of the work of Lloyd’s friend and erstwhile collaborator David E. Williams.

The last track, ‘Chalk Is Valuable, Keep It In Your Hand’, differs from the others in being of much earlier vintage – whilst the rest of the album was composed and performed during 2007 and 2008, this song was recorded in 1999, and it uses a poem written way back in 1993. Hang on to all your old notebooks, O aspiring poets! It’s also the only previously released song here, having appeared on a cassette compilation in 2000, and it’s another experimental piece. Repetitions of the words ‘hand’ and ‘chalk’ are accompanied with cymbal crashes, a rumbling bassline, found sounds and spoken recitation.

I think that I’m doing Enquiries no injustice in calling it a challenging album. Rather than the work of Naevus, the closest touchstone for comparison would be the Chimney album released in 2006 by Lloyd James and Marc Blackie of Sleeping Pictures, under the project name Lark Blames. Chimney was a similarly eclectic and experimental work, ranging from dark folk to full-bore noise music. Enquiries reveals new facets to Lloyd James’ musical talents, but should be approached with an open mind, rather than in expectation of something sounding just like Naevus. There are some sample tracks on the Retarder MySpace page, including the wonderful ‘Little Sap And Varicose’, a cover version which appeared on the David E. Williams tribute album The Appeal Of Discarded Orthodoxy.

www.myspace.com/retarder

www.touretterecords.com

www.myspace.com/touretterecords