A quirky and interesting album from an Australian artist now living in London.

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This feels less like the modern idea of an album and more like a classical music suite, something with a number of movements where the themes play out over an expanded period of time. Tomlinson has produced a few previous releases falling somewhere in between album and EP in length. There have been some nice write ups in interesting places but that hasn’t particularly translated into broad recognition.

On this album tracks bleed into each other in a way that helps suggest the central tenet of dreamscapes. In its best moments the orchestration, put together from up to 18 musicians is intriguing and playful, supporting the themes of the track. Tomlinson has a vocal delivery that nods back to artists of the 1960s and 1970s. Leonard Cohen is cited as an influence but Crosby, Stills and Nash feels like more of a reference point with some of the musical style, though the cleaner, modern sounds of Noah and the Whale feel very present at times.

Opening two tracks ‘Blink and You’ll Miss It’ and ‘My Hand In Yours’ work as a pair, the swirling orchestra revolving around some lovely acoustic guitar. These get better with each listen, there is a pleasing emotional depth to them. We then get 4 to 5 tracks comprising a sort of dream suite. The soundscapes shift on these, there is more nature, more influence from the woodwind instruments. In ‘A Dream’ everything slows down, there is time to pay attention to the small moments of imagery conjured in your head until the track briefly expands in pace and tempo, before breaking down into fragments. ‘Die To Wake Up From a Dream’ is a strong 9-minute centrepiece. ‘Your Flight’ (Dying/Another Dream) has a whole mood of its own. It is not always as successful slipping into the sort of thing the BBC Radiophonic Workshop might have knocked out for a 70s episode of Doctor Who, but there are moments where the spoken word performance of Florence Shaw of Dry Cleaning sucks you into its worldview. ‘Dream of You’ rolls along with quirky energy.

‘I’m on the border’ serves as a transition between the dream state and the next suite, the fully instrumental ‘A Meadow (Part One)’ and the upgraded more insistent 14-minute ‘A Meadow (Part Two) where the string section get their chance to shine. Tomlinson’s voice returns about 3 minutes in to see the album home to the end.

This is a very unexpected listen. There are elements within it that might appeal to fans of caroline and Black Country, New Road but ultimately this is played much straighter. It is a whole concept played out from start through to finish, consistent to itself. It reveals itself more on repeat listening, wrapping you up in its soundscape. This will not be to everyone’s taste but if you like the construction of classical music, enjoy the cleaner musical palette of the 60s and 70s, or like albums that create a whole substantial world to explore then this will very likely strike chords within you.

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