Great Lake Swimmers: Lost Channels

The entwined history of art and location is a plentiful one to map. From before Wordsworth witnessed rows of yellow flowers in Ullswater in 1804 to far after Justin Vernon chronicled life in a cabin in 2007 the nature of the world has been inspiring people.

Such obscure recording locations have become the vogue is these recent years, nothing but a byline for interviews and press releases. If the law of escalation has taught us anything it's that the next Bright Eyes album is going to done on the second moon of Blagulon Kappa. It's rare then, that for once, an album comes along where you can genuinely feel the atmosphere in which it was recorded.

Tony Dekker, the man behind Great Lake Swimmers brings out all the elements which make his chosen location - Thousand Islands, which straddle the border between Ontario and New York - so special. Steeped in an old world sensibility, lashed by the gentle, yet perennial might of waves and soaked in mystery (one of the islands is owned by a bona fide secret society - not scientology) such characteristics make up his music.

It's easy to draw comparisons from Lost Channels, the album isn't particularly unique in its sonic structure. There are shared fingerprints with the aforementioned Bon Iver, the shimmer of Band of Horses, the anthemic splendour of Teenage Fanclub, an aura of early R.E.M and maybe a small slither of Mull Historical Society. References to Neutral Milk Hotel wouldn't be too far wide of the mark either.

As a throwback to the days of analogue formats, Lost Channels has been very much envisioned as an album with two distinct parts. Some on-location recording of "Singer Castle Bells" make up the interlude between the first half - which features tracks comprising shimmery up-beat, yet rueful indie ballads - and the second, constructed from a more seamless approach to song-writing. While the first half's contents stand as distinct compositions, the latter's segue effortlessly into each other forming an eighteen-minute opus of lo-fi, downbeat, mournful, longing and continually amazing work which culminates in a sign-off as abrupt as it is necessary.

Most of the radio and blog favourites will be on the first half of the album though. "Pulling on a Line" offers hooks by name and hooks by nature, whether it's by coincidence or design that a song constructed around the premise of one entity capturing another would form the fishing net of the album - reeling in any with an ear for rustic melody - may be secret forever kept. The duet with female vocalist Serena Ryder leads what could have been a pedestrian version of "Everything is Moving So Fast" into what it actually is: a simple, mostly percussive affair which led stirringly by the two appealing leads ripe with vocal talent.

"Concrete Heart", while perhaps presenting itself as ordinary relative to its co-habitants blazes with emotional wit, ushering forth such lines as "You made me feel like a fortress / This is the place where I'm found / Like the world's tallest self-supporting tower / Or maybe, the number two, at least for a little while anyway.". The kind of lines revelling in their self-effacing, slyly humourous and yet crushingly delivered nature.

The only real landmine moment comes with "The Chorus in the Underground". While we have nothing against the genres per se, the inclusion of a wholly Americana/Bluegrass composition wears the 'sore thumb' name tag. After witnessing the buoyant charms which precede it and the ethereal beauty which succeeds it: the conclusion comes that perhaps a rollicking banjo solo was not the best way to round out part one of the album.

Jumping between all of those islands though, you're bound to hit a rock occasionally.