Yusuf Azak – Turn On the Long Wire

Yusuf Azak is a singer-songwriter without peer, thanks to a voice that proudly earns the epithet ‘acquired taste’. With each encounter, either in a live setting or on past EPs, his peculiar gasping sigh grows more fondly familiar and less curious, to the point where Turn on the Long Wire can be instantly enjoyed, without the initial moment of adjustment previously required.

Of course, if this debut album is your first Azak experience, his odd cadence and wheezy timbre might still surprise, but the songs herein are the finest, most accessible tracks he has thus far committed to tape. Strings are used more extensively than in the past, augmenting intricate guitar-work and fleshing out his gentle sound, while structurally, Azak’s grown incrementally more conventional, with verses and choruses where once there was mist. But such refinements are always to his credit, pointing Azak towards a peerlessness of a different sort. [Chris Buckle]