- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Soft Eyes
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- IDEAL210
- Release Date
- April 23, 2021
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Vinyl 1×LP
$29.99Read MoreIDEAL210
Venerable avant-gardist John Duncan supplies quietly jaw-dropping new fruits from his fertile relationship with iDEAL Recordings, rendering a concept album for the times split between thoughts on social energy/ failure, and intimacy, in his singular style. In quizzical pursuit of the haunted muse that’s informed Duncan’s boundary-pushing work since the late ‘70s, and which has lit up the iDEAL catalogue over the past half decade, ’Soft Eyes’ renders Duncan’s oblique reading of the psychic zeitgeist in subtly contrasting sides of furtively rhythm-driven and richly atmospheric songcraft. In keeping with Duncan’s reputation as a sort of avant garde shaman or psychopomp, there’s something unfathomably timeless and ineffably eternal about his work on ’Soft Eyes’, which follows the course of his modern classics such as the songbook of wizened covers ‘Bitter Earth’ (2016), and last year’s ‘Red Sky’ 2CD, without feeling like he’s re-treading old ground, and still sounding vitally unusual.
The record’s first half revolves around Duncan’s thoughts on social energy and failure, from crowds to tribal gatherings, in a low-key but extraordinary style. Chamber wind meets a metallic pulse somewhere between dembow and Yemeni folk to underline his achingly hoarse vocals on ‘The Rabid Position’, while the lurking vox of ’Say No’ smartly reaffirms his counter-cultural cache, and the queered ambience of ‘Homecoming’ sees him slip into a sort of curdled tribal reverie.
On the other hand, the B-side dwells in a starker, intimate half light, with songs stripped to a spectral quintessence between the petal-fall keys and prickly sax of ‘Foreplay’, a face freezing, ASMR-triggering beauty titled ‘Frenzy’, and an unmissable, abyss-hovering vision ‘Resolve’, and pooling into the miasmic folk strings and stygian glyde of ‘The Beautiful Attempt.’
- 1 The Rabid Position 5:56
- 2 Say No 2:00
- 3 The Decrepit Decision 3:32
- 4 Arid 2:04
- 5 Homecoming 5:16
- 6 Foreplay 3:56
- 7 Frenzy 4:40
- 8 Soft Eyes 3:32
- 9 Resolve 2:53
- 10 Reminiscence 2:06
- 11 The Beautiful Attempt 3:22
John Duncan
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- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Klaar
- Label
- Black Truffle
- Catalogue Number
- Black Truffle 031 D
- Release Date
- October 20, 2017
- LP
- Download
-
- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Bitter Earth
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- IDEAL129
- Release Date
- April 4, 2016
- LP
-
- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Mort Aux Vaches: Seek
- Label
- Staalplaat
- Catalogue Number
- MORT JDDI
- Release Date
- June 23, 2015
- Download
-
- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Send
- Label
- Touch
- Catalogue Number
- TO20
- Release Date
- January 1, 2009
- Download
-
- Artist
- John Duncan
- ReleaseProduct
- Tap Internal
- Label
- Touch
- Catalogue Number
- TONE11
- Release Date
- August 7, 2000
- Download
Ideal Recordings
-
- Artist
- Altar of Flies
- ReleaseProduct
- Bortom Reven
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL191
- Release Date
- July 2, 2021
- LP (special)
-
- Artist
- Nick Klein
- ReleaseProduct
- Actor-Network Theory
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL190
- Release Date
- November 6, 2020
- LP (special)
- Download
-
- Artist
- Reece Cox
- ReleaseProduct
- Clang
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL196
- Release Date
- November 6, 2020
- LP (special)
- Download
-
- Artist
- Senyawa, Stephen O'Malley
- ReleaseProduct
- Bima Sakti
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL198
- Release Date
- July 24, 2020
- Download
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- Artist
- Isabella
- ReleaseProduct
- Melody Depleted
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL188
- Release Date
- May 1, 2020
- LP
- Download
-
- Artist
- Index
- ReleaseProduct
- Kainos
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL197
- Release Date
- March 6, 2020
- LP (special)
- Download
-
- Artist
- The Idealist
- ReleaseProduct
- Say Yes To No
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL177
- Release Date
- September 6, 2019
- LP
- Download
-
- Artist
- Rm
- ReleaseProduct
- Spazi Futuri
- Label
- Ideal Recordings
- Catalogue Number
- iDEAL161
- Release Date
- August 9, 2019
- LP