The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain

More a performance art collective than a band per se, Tapir! was founded in 2019 by singer/guitarist Ike Gray along with Will McCrossan, who plays keyboards and Elektron drum machine. When the COVID-19 pandemic soon closed venues, Gray and McCrossan worked on writing songs that would become their first full-length project, the three-act The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain, a character-driven musical adventure involving mythical landscapes, a quest, and a growing ensemble to accommodate its offbeat art-folk. The group only seriously considered recording at the urging of Yuri Shibuichi (drummer for jazzy post-punk outfit Honeyglaze), who caught one of their shows in London. With Tapir! by then operating as a sextet of multi-instrumentalists who wrangle guitars, synthesizers, both drums and drum machine, and instruments like saxophone and cornet, they recorded The Pilgrim, Their God and the King of My Decrepit Mountain with Shibuichi producing. It was released as a series of one-act EPs, with the entire album arriving on Heavenly Recordings in early 2024. Each act on the album is demarcated by poetic spoken-word intros, with "Act 1 (The Pilgrim)" beginning with a staccato, unison, instrumental rhythmic pattern and the words "From the top of a green hill, the pilgrim did appear." Listeners are quickly transported to another world created not only by its narrative but by fat plucked acoustic guitar timbres, humming and whistling, and tuneful chords that dont quite stick to simple harmonic foundations. With each act consisting of a similar intro and three songs, it works well as an indie folk album, if a fanciful concept one with jittery drum machine patterns, as on otherwise dreamy opening song "On a Grassy Knoll (Well Bow Together)." The more reflective "The Nether (Face to Face)" trades drum machine for hand drums and rim clicks as spacy synthesizer tones provide the unnatural element. The closest thing to straight-up folk on the album is the campfire-like "Eidolon," a sweet love song with harmony vocals that, like much of the album, sounds like it was captured live. Besides its paradoxically organic yet otherworldly arrangements, another major contributor to the albums beguiling quality is Gray, whose wide-ranging leaps into falsetto territory evoke singers like Everything Everythings Jonathan Higgs and Blurs Damon Albarn. Alternately affectionate, suspenseful, weird, and poignant, TPTGATKOMDM is a journey, but its brought to you by straight-up good songs. ~ Marcy Donelson

覆面を被って活動するロンドン拠点の6人組。2枚の先行EP収録曲に新たな曲を加えたこの初のフル・アルバムは、架空の世界を描いた神秘的かつ映画的なコンセプト作となる。基本はアコースティック楽器の編成による牧歌的なインディー・フォークで、時折加わってくる変拍子やシンセもユニークでおもしろい。グリフ・リースのソロ作が好きな方はぜひ聴いてほしい。
bounce (C)赤瀧洋二