Like fellow West Country-born signees Bracken, Bristolian songwriter / producer Sam Wisternoff (aka SJ Esau) seems at first to be something of an unexpected addition to the Anticon roster, with this debut album offering Wrong Faced Cat Feed Collapse inhabiting distinctly folk-hewn acoustic instrumental territory that’s occasionally reminiscent of Hood or the Beta Band. Opening track “Cat Track (He Has No Balls)’ certainly illustrates the level of ambition packed into Wisternoff’s highly-detailed arrangements from the outset. Indeed, it shifts from delicately plucked acoustic guitar chords accompanied by just his intimately miked gentle vocals and the occasional subtle hint of digital processing into crashing drums, fiddles and guitar feedback more reminiscent of the Waterboys gone Dischord DC hardcore, before venturing out into the sort of brooding post rock atmospheres traversed by Radiohead.
The fact that the above disparate reference points even factor into the one single track should give some indication as to the impressive diversity of influences that rear their head amongst this comparatively petite 11 track, 34 minute collection. If gently-rolling steel-string guitar and harmonica-laden offering “The Wrong Order’ brings the folk-stained Hood comparisons to the forefront as wistful vocal harmonies trail around delicate acoustic strummed textures and crackling loops, highlight offering “Geography’ manages to provide arguably this album’s centrepiece moment as a crashing fusillade of treated drums akin to Caribou’s live twin drummer attack meets whirring electronics and majestic slowburning trumpets head-on.
While for the majority of the rest of this album the focus falls distinctly upon similarly widescreen landscapes that tend towards poignantly cinematic post-rock, “Halfway Up The Pathway’ manages to arrest the unwary listener mid-flow with an incongruously lo-fi tumble through some suspiciously single-miked sounding busker-esque prose that proves to be one of this album’s most immediately ingratiating highlights. Listeners with a taste for the highly-detailed folk electronic fusions practiced by the likes of Hood, Tunng and Fog will find Wrong Faced…something of an auspicious debut from a new Anticon signing well worth investigating.
Chris Downton
