Daniel Land & The Modern Painters - The Space Between Us

Set for release on May 28th, The Space Between Us is the second full-length studio album from Manchester's Daniel Land & The Modern Painters. Recorded in the inspirational setting of a 500 year-old rural cottage, the album captures Land in confessional mood, reflecting on loves lost and friendships won.

Lyrically,  The Space Between Us is a deeply personal affair, yet musically this is the Modern Painters' most collaborative work to date. The instrumentation is elaborate: mandolins, accordians and even harpsichords (not, one assumes, sourced locally in Chorlton-cum-Hardy) jostle for place amidst the swathes of guitar and lush FX. It's an adventurous project, but one that retains the spellbinding songcraft that characterised 2009's debut, Love Songs For The Chemical Generation.

Album opener Echo & Narcissus will be familiar to many. A live favourite that first appeared on 2011's web-only compiliation, Album in a Day Vol.2; this is Land at his absorbing best: delicate, uplifting and heartbreaking in equal measure.

On Lovelife Land showcases a new-found self-confidence in his vocals. Ambitious vibratos flicker over acoustic guitars and the gulping ethnic rhythm of tablas. Indeed, throughout The Space Between Us, Land's voice (so often found buried in the mix) is used more boldly than in previous outings.

Elsewhere, the heart-stopping fragility of Cherry Bark & Almonds and the shimmering grace of The Hawk & The Nightingale are balanced by Sleeping With The Past; a stand-out moment of finely-crafted pop that simply begs for radio airplay.

The album closes with the sprawling epic, Starfish Fucking. Checking in at 13 minutes in length and boasting a title which is 50% profanity, you suspect this one's been written off as a single. Nonetheless, it's a suitably grand sign-off for a record which flirts equally between intimacy and elaborateness. Our featured track (below) is lead-single, Eyes Wide Shut, a glorious cut of synth-led guitar pop and a track to treasure from this wonderful return to form.



Sleeping with the Past is released on Club AC30 on May 28th. Pre-order here.

Meanwhile, the band host two album-launch parties in London (24th May, Wilminton Arms) and Manchester (27th May, Kraak Gallery).

Daniel Land & The Modern Painters - Glitterball

Club AC30 do a lot of good things, but their 3-night Reverence mini-festival is an act of near musical philanthropy. Now in its third year, the organisers have a knack of pulling in some of the most relevant and ground-breaking talent currently playing (or, more-impressively, not currently playing) the circuit.

This year's spectacular (hosted at the ever-inspiring ICA in London's West End) boasted a roster rich with established artists and exciting breakthrough talent. No evening epitomised this policy more than Sunday's closing night, with legendary Cocteau's maestro Robin Guthrie delicately drawing proceedings to a close, aided and abetted by the wonderful Heligoland.

However, it was the Sunday evening early-birds whose eager arrival perhaps bore the richest fruit; for they were rewarded with a glorious set from opening act Daniel Land & The Modern Painters. The Manchester five-piece are building a formidable reputation for lush, textured song-writing, epitomised by the 2009 release of their debut album, Love Songs for the Chemical Generation. The CD plays like a sonic hymnal, unabashed by its influences and inspiring in its originality. Land's slight, elegant vocals bobbing on the surface of a fluid stream of sound. It's consistent, it's powerful and at times it's blissful.

In truth, the album is so strong that picking a single track to showcase here is akin to snubbing a buxom brunette to run off with a leggy blonde. Benjamin's Room, Off Your Face Again and Codeine are all worthy of further investigation, but hell, you can do that yourself once you've bought the album... And you will, once you hear Glitterball.