Lamb

Lamb: Andy Barlow, Louise Rhodes. Additional personnel: Steve Christian (guitar); The Cheinksaw Sisters (cello); Graham Massey (vibraphone); Paddy Steer, Dan Thorne (acoustic bass). Louise Rhodes' acrobatic little-girl-lost voice and Lamb's sparse background atmospheres dare you to make the inevitable Portishead comparison. It's a mean and dirty trick, though. Scratch the surface and you'll find that Rhodes and instrumental maestro Andrew Barlow have little in common with Bristol's noir-chic contingent. LAMB carves out a strange space for the Manchester duo between the hectic breakbeat bluster of drum n' bass and the jazz-and-blues-inflected chamber folk of Joni Mitchell and John Martyn. Lamb's points of reference are strange but wonderful. Rhodes' delivery combines the traits of a torch singer, an R&B siren, and an acoustic singer/songwriter into a ravishing and complex vocal identity. The very Mitchell-esque "Zero" shivers, bare and beatific, within a minimalist arrangement of cello and electronics. Bounding basslines wrap "God Bless" in the lithe contours of jazz. Vibes serve the same purpose on the frosty "Gold," while blazing trumpet insinuations graze "Closer" and "Merge." Postmodern Classical titan Henryk Gorecki is cited and name-checked in Lamb's staggeringly beautiful extrapolation of the composer's SYMPHONY, NO. 3, OP 36. "Lusty," "Closer," and "Cotton Wool" provide the hyperkinetic drum n' bass rudiments that Fila Brazillia's superlative remix of the latter (an unlisted bonus track) inflates a thousand-fold.