A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Ashes Grammar (2009)

Opening with a ten second homage to Estonian composer Arvo Part, it s immediately apparent that A Sunny Day in Glasgow s new album, Ashes Grammar, is going to be a much more visceral outing than their 2007 album debut, Scribble Mural Comic Journal. It takes a few minutes for the record to even begin to reveal itself, as a swarm of 1950s acapella ( Secrets at the prom ) gives way to resonant drones, room noise, and sub bass ( Slaughter killing carnage ). It s here that Failure unexpectedly kicks in with a tribal stomp and a fluttering guitar acting as a pair of wings, lifting the circular chants of the song s melody off the ground. It s all at once joyous, insecure, and blissed-out and sounds nothing like we ve heard from A Sunny Day in Glasgow before. Ashes Grammar is far more nuanced than Scribble, but there s still a cellular logic at play throughout. The brief, shimmering loop that is Lights turns out to be the very pulse behind the sun-kissed, ambient pop of Passionate Introverts, a feel-good song perfectly suited to accompany daydreams or dancing by yourself in your bedroom. However, even at their most accessible there s always an indescribable otherworldliness flowing through the band s music, one that is fully revealed during Blood White. Like famed composer/sound experimentalist Alvin Lucier s groundbreaking piece, I Am Sitting in a Room, during this track you can practically hear the shape of the room resonating in the frequencies of voices and synths that had been amplified, recorded, replayed and recorded again and again, the undulating tones slowly drifting into a cosmic wash of bubbling electronics and guitar. Yes, in many ways this is a different group than the one we first heard back in 2007, but with Ben continuing his role as the principal songwriter, there s no doubt this Ashes Grammar could be from any other band than A Sunny Day in Glasgow. And once again, dream pop has been re-imagined.