There Are Open Spaces is a rainy day listen, contemplative of your wet garden and that fresh rainy day smell that comes with it. If it’s main themes are modern day isolation and city living then it’s certainly taking these and deriving optimism. “Planning My Escape’ is the day ahead and all its prospects, a trip out to the country, a planned excursion; upbeat and hopefully. But mostly the LP is happy to mill about, cast under a sleepy malaise of soft textures and autumnal tones
It’s an extremely British sounding record and a hugely pastoral one, indebted to British folk of the past and, dare I say it, Coldplay; slightly reminiscent of Chris Martin’ silken vocals but without, thankfully, the smugness or megalomania-like image. Londoner Markland Starkie is Sleeping States and I don’ think there has ever been a more appropriate named band; he’ barely left the pillow at most moments on the record. It’s not without the upbeat, drum-oriented tracks like “September, Maybe’. Out of London city’ grey spaces and out under the overcast sky of the country road, cloud in lakes passing by. There Are Open Spaces is perhaps a claustrophobic record but it’s comforting, recalling those days holed up with rugs and tea and things. Loveliness is it’s biggest virtue; gentle guitars, hushed vocals – especially good with the fuzzy bedroom production of the album. It’s without contrivance thanks to strong and realized imagistic lyrics and well-paced and beguiling chord progressions mapped out with finger-picked guitars and subdued bass notes. It’s about being vague and rubbing yr eyes and not knowing where exactly you are after an afternoon nap. It’s an easy listen but challenging enough in parts, like the long and noodling “Memory Games’, or just with how skewed some of the off guitar notes or atonal delay-driven. These only add to the sheer listenability or the record. You’ll come back to this, not just on those rainy days.
Richard MacFarlane
