(2015) James Irwin - Unreal [FLAC,Tracks] {100.XY}

Review:
James Irwin‘s new full-length album Unreal seems equally fitted for late-night slow-dancing and cuddle puddle-ing. Moving away from the folky vibe of his debut Western Transport, Irwin has injected a lo-fi electro quality into his new material. In the artist’s own words: “Unreal is all about rubbery hooks, soap box vocals, and slow groove, with the nightclub vibes of a weird dream.”
That feel begins immediately with “Everything Passed Me By” and carries through the album. Tracks like “Face Value,” “Michigan Miami” and “Walls Around Nothing” are awash in synthetic sounds, but the lyrics remain genuine and the vocals sincere throughout the record.
Irwin maintained complete control over the album, engineering and playing almost everything, meticulously layering sound atop sound and piecing together the final product. He did get some help laying down backing tracks from his former band the Moment.
“It’s a fiction, a studio-as-instrument album through and through, where the tired line between synthetic and organic is beside the point,” reads a press release about the new record. “It oscillates between maximal and minimal with choral layers of harmonies and synths … giving way to sparse moments of focus and simplicity.”
Each song is written from a different character’s perspective, giving Irwin the opportunity to explore a wide range of ideas. The same press release amusingly notes: “He sounds at times like a crankier Paul Simon, a deflowered Sam Cooke, or a less cryptic Cass McCombs.”
Rating 7.8/10





Tracklist:
01 Everything Passed Me By.flac
02 Did You Hear Who Shot Sam.flac
03 Face Value.flac
04 Michigan Miami.flac
05 Blood Going Back in Time.flac
06 Siberia China.flac
07 Walls Around Nothing.flac
08 A Wave Is a Wild Thing.flac
09 Sahra.flac


Summary:
Country: Canada
Genre: indie-folk, Indie-Pop


Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~784-905 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits