Gareth Dickson - Orwell Court '2016

Tracks list

Gareth Dickson is ghostlike. From the dark outskirts of Glasgow he has sent
three studio studio albums in to the world - Collected Recordings (2009), The
Dance (2010) and Quite A Way Away (2012). These albums have bewitched a growing
inner circle, including some of the most innovative musicians around today -
Juana Molina and Vashti Bunyan to name just two. Gareth has been the only
constant member of Vashti’s touring outfit over the past ten years and
latterly they have stripped down to a duet on their worldwide travels. Vashti
indeed makes a spectral apparition on the first track of Gareth’s new
album Orwell Court.

Gareth Dickson’s music is both beautiful and dark. A quiet Scottish
melancholy underpinned by a grace and ethereal purity paired with a unique
impression where the delicacy of Nick Drake mixes with the openness and space
Brian Eno. Gareth’s music is often stripped down to the spare elements of
voice and acoustic guitar, but a complex and mysterious music hides beneath the
surface, demanding but generous and surprising. Clearly picking up where his
previous albums left off, Gareth throws in a few surprises. Gleaned from his
time spent touring and experimenting between albums the addition of a drum kit,
some keyboards and guest vocalists enrich the palette. But fear not, these
elements, while previously unheard of in his music, are approached with the
subtlety that his listeners expect. They are a texture that adds dimension
throughout the album. The hush is still there in its most genuine form.

In the image of it’s author, on the brink of falling in to juvenille
delinqueny, Gareth took a straighter path and ended up on the university
trampoline team while studying aerospace engineering. Now he spends his days
eating vegan snacks, knows how to choose a good lawyer, and sports his normcore
t-shirts on the tennis courts of Glasgow’s Southside. At night he presses
his red Doc Martens a little harder on the accelerator of his Rover 75 on
highways where they drive on the left. Everything is only a pretext to fuel his
visceral need of creation, as attested by his superglued nails cared for as
extensions of his guitar. Accuracy and uniqueness are at the heart of his
artistic process. He establishes a relationship to time outwith the current mad
and superficial pace of our own. His music is a form of modern classicism, by a
man constantly aware that perfection lies shrouded in mists of uncertainty and
ambiguity. It is above all a question of obsession and atmosphere. And it is a
unwaveringly sublime cover of this Joy Division title that closes Orwell Court.
Past revisited, and behind that, transcendence

01. Gareth Dickson - Two Halfs (4:21)
02. Gareth Dickson - The Big Lie (4:41)
03. Gareth Dickson - Snag With The Language (5:20)
04. Gareth Dickson - The Hinge Of The Year (5:55)
05. Gareth Dickson - Red Road (5:08)
06. Gareth Dickson - The Solid Word (5:50)
07. Gareth Dickson - Atmosphere (5:07)

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