Various - 'The World Is Gone' (XL) Released 17/07/06

Various have been garnering a good deal of recognition with the dance magazines on the backs of single releases 'Sir' and 'Hater'. If we consider for a moment the lushness and breadth that Tracey Thorn and Elizabeth Fraser brought to Massive Attack then we'd be appraoching a similar orbit with the female vocalist Various employ. This Various debut album 'The World Is Gone' could well prove to be this year's answer to Portishead's 'Glory Box' - less of the trip-hop but with oodles of technoid sonic-dystopia and the ethereal female vocals, a portmanteau of acoustica plus dub and down-tempo leftfield-techno.

'Thunnk' opens with its sub-techno, cold and menacing as a sewage system in a strange city, persued by bio-lab rats. Yikes! The highlight - 'Circle Of Sorrow' provides the sharpest of contrasts with its folk song leanings and pastoral charms with crystal female vocals - like Massive Attack covering 'Song Of The Whale' - "...high in the shadows I'll find you there/ fall from the heavens and I'll catch you in the air/ May you find a home with me...", electronica lending a guiding hand in contrast to the caustic post-industrial confrontation of the opening. 'Deadman' likewise is delivered as ballad. 'Hater' possesses a death march with Atari blasts of synth and the angelic vocals - "...I'm a hater... see you later/ I'd hate to see you soon...", the loaded word that is 'hater' which carries the weight whilst the track beds down heavy, a deserved leftfield anthem. T'other single 'Sir' comes from the Portishead-mold, with sublime vocals and an eerie nocturnal number, like a melancholic Yazoo with a tale of 1-sided relation woe - "You could see me coming/ must have been my fate/ I've done all the running/ it's not your race...". 'Deadman' sees a melodious folky return with translucent Sandy Denny-esque vocals "...I've been waiting...".

'Don't Ask' brings the dub and warbling bass sounding like a form of aqua-dub, skttering beats with female vocals warm and echo-chambered. Sonics turn dirgy and caustic on 'Soho' - perhaps narrating the darker ether about this neck of the woods, stumbling drug-f**ked; and 'Sweetness' possesses a hidden warmth in programming which lurks under crashing and crunching auto-plant beats; 'Today' with abrasive programming for urban-grittiness, and 'The World Is Gone' by sonically addressing the apocalypse - it ain't sweet. 'Sweetness' is the dance number and is a red-rag to the remixers bullish natures - with powerful hooks of bassy squencer doing it's loops it'll be raising the rooves of a dancehall near you, a track that'll bring out the larger side of people's natures. To finish - again by way of startling contrast is the folk-pastoral 'Fly' with it's song about a black raven - "...I'm certain that I saw/ saw that look in your eye...", strumming guitar and mandolin with penny-whistles soaring. 

'Various' are from the programming camp that'd take in the likes of Gus Gus, Portishead and Tiefschwarz - experimental leftfield with some cracking vocals. 'The World Is Gone' is an album that'll provide inspiration to musicians and erstwhile listening to the dance/electronica bod, such is their appeal. There's moments of acoustic beauty interspersed with punching below the belt programming that make 'The World Is Gone' difficult to pigeon-hole  - a strange fish but one that'll be swimming upstream.