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Virgin Passages: Distance

Contributed By: Ali Rachman
Created On: Thursday, 08 May 2008
Hits: 15

Distance

'Experimental' is always a word heard with trepidation. Previously it has been coined to described a rock band without a drummer, an anti-folk crooner who sang about ice cream vans and countless lo-fi disappointments who needn't have wasted their Sundays. But when it comes to Virgin Passages, 'experimental' the only term that suffices. Floaty, waif-like chamber pop is their thing: part 60s school choir on LSD, part Polyphonic Spree on Red Bull. Songs swan along in waveform, moving between euphoric, sweeping crescendos and serene, scarcely audible electro seas.

Third song 'Who Do You Love', anchored around the laziest of acoustic guitars, is as simple as they come: a large, eclectic group of voices, like a small village, pronounce 'la la las' in gradually louder, then swiftly quieter, choruses. That's it; vaguely folky, delicately fragmented and utterly curious.

If that felt hypnotic, then the next track's title suggests its own aspirations towards torpor. 'I Want You To Sleep' features another small cluster of singers, including an Aled Jones-sound-a-like, as well as a little birdsong and some suitably narcoleptic percussion. And so it goes: subliminal, soothing and beguiling to the end. Plucked guitars and pattering pianos complement cellos, clarinets and pianos. Ultimately the problem with such feathery jazz is that it's just too languorous; can you really commend an album that makes sleep a very tempting possibility - even one as accomplished and alluring as this?