Orzelda - The Wee Shop Is Filled With Delights

The Wee Shop Is Filled With Delights is a mini-album that is indeed filled with delights - if your idea of 'delightful' is synonymous with 'eerie', 'weird', 'fucked-up' or 'skewed'. It's apt that Twilight Sad bassist Craig Orzel has extended his surname into video game territory (Or-Zelda, geddit?), because his first work under this alias is rich in those fantastic, kitsch soundscapes that originated in 1980s Japan. This is no digitised affair, however: the diverse, textured sounds and samples come on like a cross between the brooding majesty of Boards of Canada and the fabricated nostalgia of Animal Collective. One moment we're floating in some sinister sea of gasped breaths, the next we're catapulted into muffled garage rock, via a child-like keyboard riff. This is a resolutely lo-fi release, but it's worth suspending your preconceptions and immersing yourself in its unique sound-world. No, of course it's worth it: it's free! [Nick Mitchell]