It often takes bands at least a couple of albums worth of rowdy psychedelic or garage rock before they have the confidence to turn the amps down from eleven and concentrate on the intricacies of songwriting. However, Short Break Operator (alias James Chapman) needs no preliminaries as he has dived straight into the lo-fi world of chilled-out beats and stripped down instrumentation. After sensibly deciding that making music was more important than continuing at university, Chapman retreated to his bedroom to begin recording delicate electronic sound-scapes on junk shop analogue equipment. This, his debut release, combines a pulsing electronic rhythm, with a warm spoken vocal and understated guitar. | |