Right on my door step is a vast flat area of land known as The Fens. They take in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the bit of the county that I live in – Cambridgeshire. Another resident of Cambridgeshire is Simon Scott. Drummer with Slowdive, label head at Kesh, and artist with Touch and Ash International. It is with Ash International that he has released his new album Insomni. An album I have become not so quietly obsessed with over the last few days.

Recently, and for the first time in a long time, I drove through a small part of The Fens and later mentioned on Twitter that having heard a small part of the album it would have been the perfect piece of music to accompany me on my journey. A few days later I was back, this time with the perfect soundtrack – Insomni– a slow sprawling album that perfectly captures the landscape through the use of plaintive acoustic segments and overdriven guitar moments that reflected the long low heavy clouds I was driving into. It’s field recordings made me feel like I was driving with the windows open.

I plan to go back again very soon, this time with my camera and microphone in a bag on the back seat, so I can capture some of this ancient landscape for myself. I understand that this is less of a review and more of a personal reflection. But, when an album is this close to home it makes you open your eyes once again and really look at what is right in front of you. Beautiful work from beginning to end. Lay flat. Switch your thought process to sepia and let this wash over you.

Couldn’t sleep… arose to forage for sound. The hum of the fridge encouraged further investigation of hidden, domestic sounds; the fish tank, dvd player, a broken laptop…

From darkness to light…

The album plays as one track, but for the curious, here are the album timings –

00.00 An Angel From The Sea Kissed Me
06.59 Holme Posts
09.00 Confusion In Her Eyes
15.12 Relapse
16.42 Oaks Grow Strong
21.47 Ternal
22.36 Nettle Bed
25.40 Fen Drove
28.06 Nember
31.46 Far From The Tree
37.30 Swanbark