In a world of music by committee and style and/or shock value over substance, Ed Dowie’s work encapsulates the vulnerability of a particular kind of artist. The London based composer endures a corrupted folksiness, endearing and yet often lost in hopelessness.
Ed has a history in Brothers in Sound, audio/animation performance act The Paper Cinema and others. So while no stranger to the scene or mere self-taught novelty, another creative archetype comes to mind when listening to his work (despite him not technically fitting the definition): The outsider artist.
Less volatile than Ariel Pink and more of this planet than Syd Barrett, his unassuming experimentation is proving useful. A kind of Schrodinger’s artist, who knows how much isolated testing goes undocumented. Either way, the progression is evident and the product an enhancement on this whimsical world.
The Adjustable Arm
His upcoming EP, The Adjustable Arm (out tomorrow), eschews much of the prominent obscurities found on his earlier work (such as the animal sounds running through ‘Africa’).
Frosted in reverb, the new five track recording sounds more like melancholic throes of The Magnetic Fields than his earlier pop tinkerings on various keys (such as melodica), flowing serenely alongside the more heavily-punctuated and playful of work of his past.
From the bounce of the opener (‘Cimex Lectularius’), the gloom intensifies with each passing installment. Only a few minutes away, the arpeggio-lead third track (‘Meadow Song’) marks the center of the EP and the depths of the doldrums. The peaks of ‘A Lady’ fleetingly entertain the idea of respite, that is, until the short, wistful closer that is ‘Alive’.
‘Alive’
The Adjustable Arm elicits a certain kind of lonesomeness that’s cathartic to the introvert, though the findings are likely best experienced when recreated live in a roomful of observers.
To catch a show (or have him perform in your house), see the gig dates on his website.
