CATHERINE GRAINDORGE – THE DICTATOR EP

Storm Darragh made this drive a wild one. Moors and skies packed with portent – a glove-like fit for The Dictator.

Everyone knows Iggy has a voice for the spoken word. You hear it with Death in Vegas on Aisha. You hear it on Avenue B with She Called Me Daddy. You hear it every week on BBC 6 Music, grizzled as hell but warm as hell too, inviting you in hearth-side for anecdotes and insights on music. It’s a voice to sink into. And here, set to music that follows the contours of the peaks outside, it’s a voice to feed your imagination.

The music is far from Iggy’s riotous past, though not unexpected given his later output. Belgian violinist and composer Catherine Graindorge is the visionary, crafting four tracks of string-driven moods, shimmering electronics and haunting atmospherics. No percussion, no signposted beats – just surges, pulses, drifts and searing trails of light. Iggy relays poetic warnings in The Dictator, then takes an introspective turn on Mud I and Mud II:

I walk along the river
in a thick fog.
You tell me about a book your father once gave you.
In my head turns this melody – no words.
And you read me a princess story
from a distance.

Pop’s words with Graindorge’s soundscapes? WIN. The instrumental last track of the EP, named Iggy in honour of the voice, echoes the violin-bow taps Jimmy Page did on Dazed and Confused live but here the mood is ethereal, not theatrical … a foundation for a symphonic swell which, like everything else, matches the land and the season.

Try it. Add this EP to your cold weather listens, maybe even pair it up with Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack – and not just for the Pop connection. There’s a rustic, earthy spirit running through both.

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