Kid Cornered is the moniker for Matthew Toohey, who has slung guitar in the past for Tania Bowers (we have review in the past under T Wilds). Kid Cornered has just released an album (with The Ice Chest Orchestra) of sparkling gentle tracks entitled ‘Mist On The Plains’. It a gorgeous collection of folk-driven songs that seem to incorporate a mix of Ennio Morricone spacial desert emptiness with a jingle jangle indie sparkle and a hint of Americana.
At the heart of the album is a strength of melody and a vast cinematic horizon. It is an atmospheric album – filled with spaces and depth that give it an indelible resonance. Toohey’s arrangements are free form and unrestrained, eschewing traditional structure in parts and wandering with a sense of liberation. The songs seem, in a away, to reflect his home in the Blue Mountains – wild and beautiful, dramatic and bold, softened by the filtered light.
‘Heading West Again’ is framed by fuzzy distorted guitar at a distance that create a tension with Toohey’s gentle, velvet vocals and indelible melodies with a dappling cello. ‘A LIttle Clutter Between The Ears’ sets off with a quickened pace and a sprightly trot, laden with delicious airy harmonies. It’s classic indie pop – and I can’t help but reminded of the style of the late great David Berman mixed with The Apartments and The Go-Betweens. There is a louche insouciance in the vocal delivery and backing vocals.
The crisp guitars and the haunting feedback in the distance adds to the ethereal sounds of ‘Channel Surfing’: a dream pop delight that encompasses elements of the Underground Lovers and the acoustic Beck or Sufjan Stevens. ‘On The Rails’ is more rock orientated with a distinct growl and prowl in its delivery – the kind of animalistic drive of an early Nick Cave track.
The arpeggiated guitars of ‘Sores Of The Old Country return to an acoustic based-folk with a delicate pastoral air augmented by the female back vocals. It’s a yearning gentle track filled with a certain sense of poignancy highlighted by the flute-like tendrils in the ether that sound out liek the soundtrack to a Sergio Leone movie.
Threaded throughout the album is a delicious air of melancholy, reflected in the delivery of the tracks, sometimes augmented by weeping strings in ‘Didn’t Know It Was The Last Time’ and the achingly beautiful harmonies and glam stomp vocals. ‘Don’t Remind Me’ has a gentle open air that calls to mind Paris Texas-era Ry Cooder – something that floats, ungrounded, mesmerising and hypnotic.
‘Bon Scott In Your Head’ adds a little steel to the spine – a dreamy montage of instrumentation – a hammond organ bed and pattering percussion – with Toohey’s voice deep in the mix – distant and observant. The album ends with ‘A Stain On The Chest’, a soft dreamy reverie that has a yearning delivery over the sparkling guitars.
‘Mist On The Plains’ is a calming journey with endless horizons – all seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness and a pastoral gentle refrain that shimmers in the late afternoon heat, filled with a vivid poetic hue.
It is out now and available to download and stream through all the usual sites and through the link below:
