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Owls In Her Eyes

by Barrett's Dottled Beauty

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    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Comes with a cover featuring a collage by Alan Davidson

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about

Limited edition of 80 copies
Each sleeve is a unique handmade collage
Hand-numbered

Review from Active Listener by Grey Malkin

Here is something very special indeed. A collaboration between fellow ornithologists and Scottish sound technicians Gayle Brogan (of the wonderful Pefkin and Electroscope) and Alan Cynic (of the legendary and critically acclaimed Kitchen Cynics), 'Owls In Her Eyes'can be found 'nursing an obsession equally with Syd Barrett and lepidptera' within the grooves of this vinyl only release. Housed in a beautiful collage style sleeve designed by Alan himself, four lengthy but weightless and truly transcendent tracks take the listener from the coastal haar of Kitchen Cynic's native Aberdeen to the misty showers of Brogan's west coast. Indeed, there is much of a sense of nature and of a wild and weather stricken environment contained within the floating, drifting beauty of these hugely atmospheric, arcane and ambitious pieces.

'The Cynic, the Dipper and the Thrush' opens the album with harmonium drones and picked acoustic guitar, Barrett hued slide pulling the song into focus as Brogan's unearthly but startlingly beautiful vocals emerge from the morning haze. Cynic's deep Aberdonian brogue recites a delicate spoken word piece as shimmering cascades of guitar and analogue synth gently hover behind. An incantation to the land and to the seasons that is reminiscent of the ethereal yet earthy Fovea Hex, this is material to truly raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Midway, a descending guitar run and flanged vocal takes us deeper down the rabbit hole into a more cosmiche universe, something more madcap and lysergic before the song ends in a symphony of backwards tapes and voices. Next, 'Forvie' enters on a foundation of pulsating organ drones and subtle fuzz guitar that combined proves quietly effective. Brogan's vocals are again utterly striking and the track seems to have its own internal pulse and breath, wraith-like synth bleeps and vintage keyboard sounds pick out an unearthly and eerie melody from the glistening haze. Cynic's guitar builds to come to the fore along with a steady, insistent harmonium note before Brogan's layered vocals create a ghost filled, echoing choral resonance that seems to linger long after the track has finished. The album's title track comes next, repeated keyboard spirals and a deep humming herald a breathtaking duet between Cynic's emotive and haunting voice and Brogan's treated backing vocals. Droning psych guitar notes pierce through the washes of sound, slide guitar and strings weep and wander towards the stars; the result is akin to ancient Scots lament by way of the UFO Club in London's swinging 60s. Genuinely affecting and quite unique, this really has to be heard. Finally, 'The Rain Has Come In Misty Showers' starts with a melancholy, resonating keyboard pulse and Brogan's pensive and reverberating vocals, a deep sense of stormclouds overhead and the weathered landscape never far from mind. Indeed, a piece by visionary poet John Clare is recited, further emboldening a mood that seems rich and filled with the environment and its effects upon both the psyche and human condition. At once filled with beauty and dread, this is a heartbreaking piece that begs to be played somewhere wild, barren and windswept, preferably at dusk.

This album comes very highly recommended; fans of Pefkin and The Kitchen Cynics will both want to seek this out and for newcomers this serves as a different but equally fine entry point to both artists, providing you also seek out their rewarding back catalogues along the way. 'Owls In Her Eyes' is a veritable nestful of riches, do not let this pass you by but also do not delay; this release is limited to 80 copies complete with download code.

Review from The Sunday Experience

first great album of the year, now there’s a hefty notice to be saddled with and have to live up to, yet it’s a description that’s well deserved for this debuting full length from Barrett’s Dottled Beauty appears to emerge from a rarefied fog that’s far removed and remote of pop’s populated path. The collaborative work of an Electroscope and a Kitchen Cynic, ‘owls in her eyes’ comes pressed in a strictly limited 80 only wax variation housed in hand made / hand numbered collage sleeves. Upon its grooves four soft psyche siren-esque psalms quietly stare, seduce and enchant, beguilement doesn’t begin to touch it, ghostly drone mosaics, which as reported on previous encounters, arrive trimmed in classicist vintage whose lineage ripples to a dawning of time whilst sonically balanced on a finite point located somewhere between the primordial psych folk utterance’s of Alphane Moon, Ghost, our glassie azoth and the bewitching trips of George Harrison’s ‘blue jay way’ – non more so is this better exemplified than on the title track itself, buried in the twilight mists hushed murmurs rise and float amid washes of waking atmospherics, the effect very much tuned into some hitherto lost Nico-esque ghost folk mystic. But then to attempt to describe the overall effect of ‘owls in her eyes’ is to liken it to spirit walking through a dream, for here the melodies float in part, in ethereal rapture and wood whittled wooziness to dissipate and dissolve in the ether, delightful spectral symphonies weaved in the wind and arrested upon an unmoored fluidity that sees them shape shift with an alluring eeriness that’s both seductive and enchanted. Here the frost chipped ice sculpturing of ‘the cynic, the dipper and the thrush’ shimmer hazily softly unfurling their kaleidoscopic mantra drawing upon a sonic mysticism that threads elements of Dodson and Fogg with John Fahey. Given its sparse detailing ‘forvie’ – frankly the best thing here it should be said – reveals itself as a lushly toned cosmic ghost light, a celestial rapture graced in hymnal hues and chill tipped choral coos all traced upon lunar pulsars and kissed with an otherly presence. ‘the rain has come in misty showers’ draws matters to a close and as such crafts out something bruising, crushed and lovelorn, its mesmeric and shadowy folk noir toning teased in a fracturing and surrendering beauty that hints of both Preterite and Dead Can Dance whilst similarly soured in the fragile hollowed majesty of Glissando. Irrefutably essential.

From the Terrascope

Kitchen Cynic Alan Davidson and Pefkin Gayle Brogan are back with their second collection of avant, experimental folk noise. Opener ‘The Cynic, The Dipper & The Thrush’ sounds like an autobiographical title (!), but the music is as soothing as a warm bath on a cold winter’s day. Droning acoustics, Brogan’s lilting vocals, treated tape loops, and bubbling electronic flourishes occasionally prompted (or directed) by Davidson’s aphoristic utterances combine to create a dreamlike state for self reflection. ‘Forvie’ is as haunting, melancholic and hallucinatory as a day spent wandering through its namesake’s drifting sands. Multi-tracked vocals compete with subtle fuzz guitar and electronic soundbeams to provide your personal soundtrack for a walk amongst the dunes, communing with scores of wigeon, oystercatcher, golden plover, and, dunlin. And in a case of psychosomatic listening, I thought I heard some whales calling to me from Hackley Bay. It’s a truly spiritual experience.
The flip side contains two more meditative pieces, including the title track, an eerie sound collage of gull-like whistling and wailing electronics set to a dreamy, drifting pulse beat. Guitars wheeze like electric violins in the background throughout this calming, yet still unsettling composition. More sonic effects and throbbing wah-wah treatments permeate ‘The Rain Has Come In Misty Showers’, with Brogan’s treated whispers recalling Mia Farrow’s ‘Lullaby’ from Rosemary’s Baby.
It’s all very romantic and heartwarming, and yet there’s an ominous element that will keep you pinned to your speakers waiting for that other shoe that never drops. Simply stunning. Hurry to grab one of the 80 hand-numbered albums, each featuring one of Alan’s unique, handmade collaged covers!
(Jeff Penczak)

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released January 9, 2017

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Barrett's Dottled Beauty Scotland, UK

Gayle Brogan (Pefkin / Burd Ellen) / Alan Davidson (Kitchen Cynics). Long-form psych folk. This project has reached its end.

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