Over the course of his 15-plus year career, whether with Arab Strap, working alone, or with others, as on ‚Everything’s Getting Older‘, last year’s Scottish Album Of The Year winning collaboration with Bill Wells, Aidan Moffat’s work is always characterised by a certain degree of quality. His solo moniker of L. Pierre allows him to indulge in the more experimental side of his psyche. ‚The Island Come True‘ is his fourth under this name, and is a deeply beguiling work that suggests his best form of creative expression may come in this format.
The record is named after the chapter in Peter Pan where they first discover Neverland, an apposite title for the enchanting fantasy world that Moffat has created. The eleven pieces here are all made up of field recordings, found sounds and samples he has collected. There are no sonic embellishments or additions. The primitive hiss, crackle and drone of old tapes is a constant theme throughout, giving the album a ghostly, otherworldly quality, and listening to it intently in a dark room on a pair of headphones is akin to a transcendent experience – perhaps the reaction that was desired. The nature of the sound collage approach allows listeners to experience the album in a number of different ways; it’s entirely open to their imagination and their ability to float off in to a distinct dream state.
If there is one overt emotion generated by these pieces of music then it is one of sadness. There’s a hugely affecting bleak beauty to the funereal string lament of ‚The Grief That Does Not Speak‘, or the morose classical stylings of ‚Sad Laugh‘ which adds the sound of children playing for a drastic juxtaposition.
As well as being hugely emotionally heart-wrenching at times, ‚The Island…‘ is also steeped in the surreal and slightly disturbing. The ice cream van tune of ‚Now Listen!‘ and ‚Dumbum“s crackly voice humming an obscure tune are slight but important pieces in conveying the general atmosphere and tone of the collection. The one constant throughout is the beauty of the sounds and the carefully crafted way in which Moffat has constructed them in to a lucid and coherent album. ‚Harmonic Avenger‘, with its balletic and graceful piano figure and ‚KAB1340‘, full of birdsong and the sound of nature and the elements are both hugely compelling pieces of music. ‚The Island Come True‘ has a real innate beauty that makes it an utterly bewitching listen. (Martyn Young)