Francis MacDonald – Music For String Quartet, Piano And Celeste

Rein in those tiresome drummer jokes: Teenage Fanclub’s multi-talented sticksman Francis MacDonald is here to make nonsense of all those clapped-out ‘someone who hangs around with musicians’ gags. Recorded in Mogwai’s Glasgow studio, Music For String Quartet… is a collection of minimalist compositions drawing on the likes of Philip Glass and Yann Tiersen, as well as his own soundtrack work. Perhaps predictably, it’s also quite lovely.

Largely based around repeated motifs, the fragile piano arpeggios of Playful and 20 Sep are airy as a late summer breeze; as prone to optimistic flourishes as to sweet, faintly tragic dips into melancholy. The former’s sudden brushes of strings are a revelation, however, channelling the beauty of each phrase into a pastoral purity. 3 4 5 is equally memorable, particularly when a mournful cello echoes MacDonald’s solemn piano. It’s a sudden and poignant darkness, like clouds passing across the sun on the cusp of nightfall, with a sense of magical possibility echoing throughout.

As a man who’s worked with enough Scottish indie heroes to make Stephen Pastel blush, MacDonald has certainly made records with greater immediacy and variety; this is an elongated exploration of moods rather than an collection of hook-laden pop songs. Still, it’s worth making space in your life for an album as gently evocative as this.