FOUND - This Mess We Keep Reshaping

I'm afraid life doesn't follow art, sings Ziggy Campbell on See Ferg's In London. Listening to FOUND's chaotic sophomore album, one can't help but wonder how crazy things would be if it did. It would be unfair to the Edinburgh based collective to dwell on their choice of album title here, though it does seem rather apt. This Mess We Keep Reshaping is wonderfully wild and disjointed: it won't help you off to sleep at night, but then there are plenty of sedatives on the market. This is a set of terrific pandemonium, from the countrified slide guitar of Gifted, to the Looney Tunes/Wu Tang like sampling on Some Fracas of a Sissy, to the early Gomez handclaps on the fantastic Admission Number Two. It's testament to the depth of sound that it takes repeat listens to notice the strength of Campbell's voice and the wit in his couplets. Even when trying to be sonically straight (When You Fall), lyrically they're brilliantly daft. FOUND seem like the kind of band you could lock in a recording studio with nothing more than a guitar, a laptop and an assortment of crockery: the closest thing Scottish music has to the DIY genius of BA Baracas. [Finbarr Bermingham]