We know the English Midlands for draughty manors and pasty melancholics, and Duncan Sumpner (who also calls himself Kayak) isn't keen to change that image. Songs of Green Pheasant, a demo cycle the Sheffield teacher recorded on a four-track in his kitchen, makes its own lack of fidelity feel like yet another deprivation in a steely gray land. That's lo-fi's great ruse, of course, subsuming message inside mood, and we're wise to it at this late juncture. But when Sumpner's painterly swatches of song match his pillowy sonics, these could be the lost great Paul Simon B-sides.
Songs of Green Pheasant Web site
