DAVID HOLMES レコード& CD

Review: David Holmes' first solo album since 2008's The Holy Pictures, Blind On A Galloping Horse now comes to Heavenly Recordings. A politically-charged LP full of sonic interrogations of political disaster and turmoil, Holmes here joins the cast of artists using their art to provide solace to music fans suffering at the hands of the Uncertainocene. With updated versions of the previously released singles 'Hope Is The Last Thing To Die' and 'It's Over If We Run Out Of Love', as well as a recording of an unreleased song by Holmes' late friend Andrew Weatherall, we're reminded of conflict, migration and othering, as all manner of voices combine to form a diverse but unified whole against a backdrop of leftfield post-punk - be they the spoken word accounts from Afghan and Ukrainian refugees now welcomed as residents in Belfast, or the French and Irish observers of the UK's turmoil of recent years.

Review: Treading an eclectic path through a twenty year career that's taken in everything from Detroit techno to vintage French ye-ye, from breakbeat-driven floor-fillers to krautrock epiphanies, David Holmes has made his name predominantly as an exemplary crate-digger and aesthete, whether soundtracking Steven Soderbergh movies or dishing our albums of his own. Thus, it comes as no surprise that this compilation - marking something of a personal journey for Holmes - is reflective of his status as an exemplary man of taste. Whether dispensing classics by the likes of David Crosby or Buddy Holly, unreleased original solo material or killer obscurities from everyone from modular synthesis cultist Keith Fullerton Whitman to Hollywood legend Jeff Bridges, this stylish nocturnal travelogue puts the listener resolutely in safe hands.