Ian William Craig

Slow Vessels FAT CAT. DL/LP

Vancouver singer-songwriter’s 2016 album Centres re-imagined acoustically

Centres delivered a cryptic mix of melodic songs and blurry sonics, but Slow Vessels, recorded in a flat in Gothenburg, strips all that away, so The Nearness, originally stated on a reedy keyboard and half buried in layers of electronic squall, is here played as a piano ballad. By contrast, Purpose (Is No Country) was originally a complex a cappella construction, but is now a folky finger-picking affair. Craig has a really fine voice, which is given plenty of space to explore in these new versions. But it’s not that straightforward – there is some electronic manipulation, which sounds like channel leakage from the original album and at times the piano is swathed in cathedral reverb. But the oddest thing is that it was recorded using auto level, so when the music gets quieter there is an irritating increase in tape hiss.