noWax

James’ voice is infused with delicate folky emotion to its very core. After all, this is what gave Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci their magic. A founding member of the now defunct Gorky’s, Richard James has been wooing the world with his voice for some time. To those familiar with James’ warm voice, the feel of this album won’t come as a surprise. Much of ‘The Seven Sleepers Den’ is based around his voice and his guitar. Slow electric guitars layer themselves over faster acoustic layers and harps to produce a very rounded and easy going sound. You might imagine that this would lead to a straight folk collection and while this is the backbone of the album there is a psychedelic edge that keeps creeping in, giving ‘The Seven Sleepers Den’ an identity slightly off the straight and narrow.

After the slightly bizarre intro sequence ‘Catedral’, the album starts with a serene Welsh language piece, ‘Tir A Mor’. Speedy virtuoso guitar picking and the sounds of water washing up a beach create a warm earthy feel and with faint electronic keyboard lines and effects it shapes nicely into a very audibly pleasing affair. ‘My Heart’s On Fire’ walks into familiar Gorky territory;: tambourines, poppy melodies and lush harmonies, what could be better? The ‘John Fahey-ish’ conversational ‘Space Instrumental’ has acoustic guitars bouncing lines back and forth, then when a harp, piano and snare brushes come in they take the track into the realms of psychedelic folk. ‘Headlong’ washes over you like the heat from an open fire. The harmonica and warm string sounds balancing out the subtleties of James’ velveteen voice. Meanwhile tracks like ‘Empty And Cold’ and ‘Long Long Time’ are quite traditional and easy going soft emotive folk songs.

Where the album makes its mark is when it launches out of this into more experimental territory. Songs break out of their mould at unexpected times and delve into a folky proggy leftfield place. This makes the album a more intriguing listen. This is a great start for Richard James and it’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here.