What LUMP lacks in running time, it more than makes up for in spine-tingling creativity and beauty.
Recorded in Lindsay’s London studio, Marling and Lindsay’s meeting of minds produced the cerebral LUMP, seven long, idiosyncratic, frequently ambient tracks.
Undoubtedly made in its creators’ image, LUMP is an eccentric but forthright child, one that will never pander to peer-group popularity, but will always gain acceptance through intelligence, sensitivity and honesty combined.
LUMP is dream-like. The listener slips into the album quickly, becoming engrossed in Marling and Lindsay’s surreal landscape. It’s over almost as soon as it’s begun, shimmering in the background with catchy hooks that follow you throughout the day.
However littered with in-jokes Lump may be, the songs that make up the duo’s debut album are never alienating. Instead, the record – which is underpinned by Lindsay’s ambient sound cycle – rings with an unusual but uncomplicated beauty.
LUMP is a creation that both composers stressed passed through them and they look upon parentally and this is evident as an articulation of the artistic detail of the contemporary, through Lindsay’s colourful soundscapes.
LUMP, it seems, is a creature of its own will: a living, breathing piece of art.
Lindsay’s wonky music ... benefits hugely from the strength of Marling’s voice and persona.
Laura Marling's weirdest lyrics to me, and Mike Lindsay's best-produced project to date. The two unexpectedly created an album with such a strong cinematic feeling (Late to the Flight for example), something I would never have thought. Marling alone couldn't be farther from a cinematic sound, while Lindsay's production is really corny a lot of the times. Yet somehow LUMP exists, and some of these songs are seriously fantastic.
1 | Late to the Flight 5:36 | 85 |
2 | May I Be the Light 4:46 | 65 |
3 | Rolling Thunder 4:29 | 75 |
4 | Curse of the Contemporary 4:14 | 70 |
5 | Hand Hold Hero 5:26 | 65 |
6 | Shake Your Shelter 5:23 | 70 |
7 | LUMP Is a Product 1:52 |
#2 | / | Piccadilly Records |
#5 | / | Drift |
#5 | / | Loud and Quiet |
#14 | / | Under the Radar |
#19 | / | Rough Trade |
#59 | / | Fopp |
#66 | / | MOJO |
#74 | / | God Is In The TV |