ALISON COTTON

The Portrait You Painted Of Me (Rocket)

On her fourth solo LP The Portrait You Painted Of Me, and first for Rocket, Alison Cotton taps into the same dark undercurrents of British history, psyche and pagan folk traditions that in recent years have inspired the likes of Gazelle Twin’s Pastoral. Murmurations Over The Moor sets the tone, repurposing the first term of its title as a perfect descriptor for Cotton’s interweaving, wordless vocalisations. The tense, droning combination of viola and harmonium and the ominous drumbeats of I Buried The Candlesticks soundtrack a slow procession to the gallows.

The vocals finally coalesce into intelligible lyrics on Violet May, a bleak fairy tale, and the album ends with 17th November 1962 and a foghorn sounding a sombre tribute to those who died in a lifeboat disaster. Defiantly avant-garde and with greater emphasis on texture than on tune, The Portrait You Painted Of Me is a strange, foreboding record, entrancing and unsettling in equal measure.

words BEN WOOLHEAD