microphones in the trees: ain

Sunday, June 08, 2008

ain


"Information on Aindriu Conroy is hard to come by - partly, one suspects, because this young Irish blues excavator aspires to the murky coolness of his inspirations, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. He describes his music only as "songs in the key of D", and Close to Cotton is just that: a six-track, 18-minute mini-album composed primarily in one key and sung in one register. But if Ain ploughs a narrow furrow, he does it well. Sleepily plucking an acoustic guitar, he commands attention by the old gambit of being the quietest person in the room. There's a bit of Neil Young to his raw-boned croon, and more than a bit of the Bad Seeds to the lurid pictures he paints of his "dead-eyed mistress". Excellent listening for the bleak midwinter." caroline sullivan

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