GUEST REVIEWER ROBERT DAYTON (www.pleasencerecords.com) "A Hound At The Hem" is a kinda sorta concept album rescued from near-oblivion and made real. Reality: what a concept. A rumour was passed that this album took ten months to make. It shows. All with great care. They sure know how to nuance the layers. Most immediately striking are the strings, arrangements by Owen Pallett. Members of under-acknowledged Toronto instrumental act Zacht Automaat step into the platter. Organ and harspichord delicately swoon and swarm. Bass and drums forging molten. Slim Twig is coming into his own plunging dynamic depths of glory. Articulating that which is just out of reach, the thickly veiled taboo sexual proclivities and desires in alternating voices soft and throaty rhyming 'It's my condition' with 'It's like a prison.' Wrinkled plum velveteen, falling down neo-baroque. Up-too-late psych that is far to preoccupied to get wanky as it careens the marble-mouthed corridors of glam. Self-described Jean-Claude Vannier hat-tip reference pointer, but more modern sparkling murk and more Psychomodo, your Mother is in your DNA, it's inescapable.
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