Sleeping States - 'In the Gardens of the North' (Bella Union) Released 17/08/09

Centred on a solitary figure with a (mostly) stately paced song in his heart, sounding like it was recorded somewhere far, far away from the nearest patch of paved streets. It’s temptingly easy to count Sleeping States amongst the well-populated procession of permanently broken-hearted sensitive singer-songwriter types. Musical expectations end up being pitched accordingly in a finger-picking friendly terrain – pleasant, predictable, polite, possibly boring.

‘In The Gardens of the North’ is as far removed from the aforementioned anti-pulse quickening adjectives as possible for anything that doesn’t involve the entire frontline of the band leaping off the drum riser in unison whilst pyrotechnics are going off. Perhaps Bristol-based Markland Starkie – the multi-instrumentalist behind the brand – has decided to forego using his given name in his musical activities to avoid being categorised alongside Bon Iver et al. He really shouldn’t have worried, for his is one truly, rarely original sound.

‘In the Gardens of the North’ is hopelessly, and refreshingly, difficult to summarise in any meaningful way, making reviewing it a futile, stumble-prone business. The approach is best described by the titles of the tracks ‘Breathing Space’ – sparse, natural, clear, yet with plenty of attention-grabbing detail – and ‘A Spiral Not Repeated’, for the record’s fuelled by an embarrassment of melodic innovation, with many dazzling phrases many artists would build careers on appearing only briefly, never to return.

Some bits bear a slight resemblance to the ambitious epics of the Dirty Projectors, only in this case the complex, restlessly evolving compositions consist almost exclusively of a hyperactive electric guitar, which Starkie plucks, strums, strokes and strikes with a virtuoso – never in a showing-off sense – skill. Elsewhere, Jeff Buckley’s similarly frills-free ‘Live at Sin-E’ springs to mind, although Starkie skips the vocal gymnastics in favour of a gentle yet flexible croon, frequently multi-tracked to a dizzying effect. Despite the paucity of the tools employed, the album covers an impressive range of styles and moods, from the melancholy, Kafka-inspired ‘Next Village’, a gem that practically drips with yearning, and the woozy doo-wop romance of ‘Gardens of the South’ to the driving stomp of ‘Red King’.

Easy listening it isn’t – anything this unwilling to court convention and well-trodden paths risks being initially rejected by ears accustomed to encountering the same limited range of tricks. Get over the initial bafflement, though, and ‘In the Gardens of the North’ soon blooms into an endlessly rewarding, hypnotic listen that’s likely to become a regular habit.