Lone -'Airglow Fires' [review] PUBLISHED JULY 2013- NOW THEN

LONE- ‘AIRGLOW FIRES’ [MUSIC REVIEW] 

PUBLISHED July 2013

We seem to always be awaiting the return of the prodigal sun.

It’s like a family member who’s perpetually away on foreign business. You learn to cope without them, come to terms with the fact they’re gone, then become infatuated to the point of worship when they come bouncing back.

The people of these British Isles have such a collective vitamin D deficiency that rickets are a genuine worry.

We see our star so little that the Scottish water board have recently taken it upon themselves to add the vitamin to their national supply, although there won’t be any real benefit until it becomes one of the many additives in IRN BRU.

Any opportunity to rekindle our estranged relationship with tanning is rinsed for all it’s worth. We thrive on anything the least bit summery. Cheap strawberries, disposable barbecues and the odd hosepipe ban make the grey days we have to endure seem a little more bearable, and there’s nothing quite like sun drenched music to make the humours a little less tepid. 

Just as we’re all a few showers away from a full washout a ray hope comes in the form of Lone. The first piece of fresh material from the Nottingham virtuoso in over a year, ‘Airglow Fires’, is a sun kissed belter of the highest order. 

Bursting at the seams with lush choral pads, twinkling synths and a freshly baked Chicago groove, the whole package is a much welcomed dose of warmth.

The track’s 2 step themed rhythm section and sporadic melody lend it a bounce that’s impossible to ignore. Floaty breakdowns and dense drops eventually wind down into a balmy beat skit, cut from the same cloth as the efforts from sophomore album ‘Lemurian’.

Keeping with it’s toasty theme, the B side ‘Begin To Begin’ plays out as the perfect accompaniment to a tropical dusk. Muted stabs, soft cymbal rides and yet more dulcet female pads lazily crawl through a sublime blanket of reverb. The whole tracks’s foundation is a drowsy 4/4 that perks things up enough to make it a real eyes closed swaying number.

Lone continues to adapt his style masterfully, and he seems to have tailored this adaptation to the season we covet the most.

As we wait for the prodigal sun to grace us again, the return of the correct spelling will do just fine.