For their third album Grasscut have relocated from Ninja Tune to Lo Recordings, and with it they bring a more subtle, live approach to their music. They also make it more ‘pastoral’, taking inspiration for the album from the Mawddach Estuary in Wales as well as natural locations in East Sussex and on the South Downs. The listener can hear the outdoors both in the vocals and the instrumentation, with more of a boy-girl dynamic to the former that works well thanks to guest vocals from Elisabeth Nygård. There is a sense of melancholy in the dusty beauty of tracks like ‘Radar’, with its thoughtful violin solos, while ‘Slower Snowdon’ explores the lower range of the clarinet to surprisingly emotional effect. It is the production of Andrew Phillips and Marcus O’Dair that lifts the songs from merely good to excellent, with accomplished writing for strings and some tasteful electronic dressing. Meanwhile the new approach allows the duo to explore emotional depths they haven’t previously, as though these natural locations are the most precious thing on earth.
