Laki Mera - Clutter

Clutter, the debut LP of Glasgow's Laki Mera, is an album loaded with paradoxes: The muddled, at times formless lyrical content delivered by the flawlessly crystalline vocals of Laura Donnelly. The juxtaposition of harsh, fabricated rhythm structures with the alluring warmth emitted by the broken bursts of cello and violin. This is the soundtrack to a thousand dying parties, minus the troublesome heavy-eyedness. And then there's the title itself… Clutter somehow seems inappropriate for an album that sounds so spacious and wistful. From the menacing, grinding bassline that ushers in opening track She's A Day Later, to the euphoric instrumental I'm Talking and the ethereal beauty of Weighed Down, it's a moody, atmospheric debut, best treated with headphones or an empty room. Save for the lack of a telling hip hop influence here, we could be looking at Glasgow's answer to Massive Attack, and in Donnelly they have their very own Liz Fraser. [Finbarr Bermingham]