Adam Stafford – Build a Harbour Immediately

Build a Harbour Immediately is filmmaker, music video director, ever-inventive musician, and regular Renaissance man Adam Stafford’s first studio release under his own name. The qualifiers are necessary – between Y’All is Fantasy Island and various other projects, he’s amassed quite the discography. This surely ranks high amongst them, with tracks frequently setting off in one direction, before Stafford whips around to challenge assumptions.

Take Shot-down You Summer Wannabes: what begins a kind of esoteric loop experiment sheds its layers to reveal a shiny pop core. A similar trick is pulled on Frederick Wiseman, an uncluttered, melting R&B whisper which sets up the closing ambient drift of A Vast Crystal Skull. Elsewhere the font is more familiar but no less successfully channelled: Fire & Theft opens the album with Kinks-y swing, while Cathedrals is a barely-there gossamer ballad. All in all, great enough to de-glum those disappointed by YiFi’s disbandment earlier this year. [Chris Buckle]