Blogiarhiiv

7/17/2014

Mr Duke – I Can`t Find My Keys (2007)


  • American Primitivism
  • New Weird Wales
  • Weird folk
  • Post-folk
  • Free folk
  • Indie folk
  • Experimentalism
  • DIY
  • Anti-folk
  • Freak folk
  • Ambient folk
  • Psych-folk
  • Avant-garde
  • Electro-acoustic
  • Lo-fi


Comment: Mr Duke is a Welsh busker/musician Gwynfor Dafydd Edwards (born in 1983) who had previously played in a London-based prog band, Elysium Field, before he decided to embark on his solo project. His debut album under the excellent label Earth Monkey Production kicks off (Bikes Piss Past My Window) in the vein of so-called American Primitivism providing restrained guitar chords, simple countryside feeling and little changes in chords the long-running track throughout. However, the next compositions (with some exceptions) used to surprise with intense experimentalism and with-it feeling. More concretely, the tracks are filled with guitar chords and vocal lines turned inside out, schizoid stereophonic and reverb effects and uncanny noises and bleak ambient-tinged (or not) electronic/electro-acoustic coming out from both channels. Of course, Mr Duke stylistically seems to be related to the anti-folk and New Weird movements, though, his ideas might ideologically derive from the experimental concepts of krautrock either (for instance, reminding of Faust-esque sonic mayhem). Highly impressive. Finally, I do recommend to listen to such artists as Chad Golda, Felicia Atkinson, and Speculativism as well.