Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

When you find something so entrancingly unique, so wonderfully odd and unconventionally offbeat you just have to embrace it, nourish it and hope that it stays the distance and others see the musical imagery on offer. It arguably doesn’t come any more unique than Whiskey Moonface’s debut album One Blinding Dusky Dusk.

A world of dreams, of fantasies and powerful whims is what is on offer from Ewan Bleach, Jim Ydstie and Louisa Jones and their special guests, a world in which the straight and narrow is as useless as finding a half written crumpled book lying in the draw of Darcy Sarto, the impulse to listen to novel creativity is more overwhelming than being given the keys to a brewery and being told to mind it for a while.

There is much to be said for the way of life in which embraces all, that can see the good in most things and are willing to bring notice of the abundance of quirky notions to a wider audience whilst placing them firmly within a boundary that is honest and purely divine.  The songs on offer could be classed as dystopian but what comes across is the feeling of finding yourself transported into the heart of a small public house in the Dutch countryside and the locals enjoying the sound of freedom whilst fighting peril and danger as part of the resistance. The smouldering haze of pipe tobacco lingering long into the night and mixing with the fear that at any point the plans, so carefully hidden in an empty barrel, could be discovered.

With guest performances from Alistair Caplin, the wonderful violinist Mirabelle Gillis, Sky Murphy and John Blease, the headiness of originality, the heat of the blissful accordion, the sensuality of double bass and the utter sexiness of the clarinet fused by the well-written songs by Louisa Jones, One Blinding Dusky Dusk gives the idea of strangeness of twilight, the period in which anything can happen. Tracks such as Yellow Fingernails, Limehouse de Reverie, the sublime feel of Dead Dog, the excellence of Thunderstorm and the utter playfulness of Octopus don’t just unleash the imagination, they untie all the ropes and let the strangeness run wild and free.

One Blinding Dusky Dusk is an album of complete musical maturity, of acceptance and learning and a lot of fun to behold. Unique and charming!

Ian D. Hall