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With You Look Cold, 24-year old Dubliner Patrick Kelleher makes his debut on Irish label Osaka Recordings, setting out his stall as an experimental songwriter using lo-fi electronic instrumentation and some incredibly strange production. Avoiding both the conventions of recording technology and the normal order of things in terms of song structure, Kelleher devises a genuinely unique sound on this album. Arguably the most explicitly song-like construction here is 'Wintertime's Doll' - a rare instance in which Kelleher's voice is given a clean delivery with no discolouring post production. Spare snatches of violin line the edges of the track, with a combination of handclaps and a sequencer's generic metronome sound doggedly keeping time. It's a stirring moment of gothic drama on an album that'll generally have you scratching your head. Take the following track for example: 'Finds You' makes very little musical sense, hammering out a scratchy old rhythm while the vocal whoops around formlessly at the centre of the piece. Curious Casio riffs start to make their presence felt during 'He Has To Sleep Sometime' and 'Until I Get Paid', but there are a few more sombre moments on the album that offer counterbalance to the scrappier DIY collages, such as the dusty fourtrack folk of 'Wonder', whose resounding moroseness suggests that Kelleher's talent has depths not entirely revealed by You Look Cold.
Swinging from Vincent Gallo's most whispery nonchalance to thumping electro beats circa Talking Heads with David Byrne/ Ian Curtis shouty vocals ('He Has to Sleep Sometime') via an obvious interest early 90s hip-hop, perhaps A Tribe Called Quest most noticeably, no small feat for one man!
Track listing:
1. Not Leaving Town
2. Coat to Wear
3. Wintertime's Doll
4. Finds You
5. Multipass
6. Wonder
7. He Has to Sleep Sometime
8. The Devils of Loudun
9. Until I Get Paid
10. Blue Eyes
11. I Am Eustace
12. Look, I Wore a Tie
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