knet – devizine.com

Coming around to Devizine’s fifth birthday has got me reminiscing on how all this started in the first place, who is really to blame?! It wasn’t Richie Triangle’s fault, really, for he cannot help who comes to see him play, but as for our mainstay support of local live music, a hefty portion transpired from a rare occasion the better half and I dropped into the Black Swan and was surprised and blown away to hear some live music in town, this good.

Here’s the thing, there is and always was a lively music scene in Devizes, I know this now, but I went from the raver-clubber into parenthood and neither of them warrant the angle to have gone searching for a band in a pub, not that it was something I disliked, far from it. At the time my local rant column for Index;Wiltshire was becoming tiresome and heavily edited, it was time to spin it around, reflect on what was good about living in Devizes. Richie Triangle’s residency at the Black Swan was the catalyst, and I ventured off to find Tamsin Quin, and the rest erupted from there.

Times move on, landlords of pubs do, and so did Richie, now residing on the Kent coast, yet, I still think we owe it to him to mention his latest album, Imposter Syndrome, released this week. It’s a far cry from the acoustic young man belting out Irish folk songs and pop covers in the same format. Richie is a force to be reckoned with, an intricately weaver of wordplay and original compositions, and if David Gray coined the term folktronica, Richie has epitomised it.

Here’s your for instance; twelve songs blending acoustic goodness into pop, with echo-delays of dub, an acapella intro with oddities of voice synthesisers, followed by The Tide, a modish-come-country angle, much in the flavour Elvis Costello, or what Jon Amor achieved with Red Telephone. From there there’s really no pigeonholing, Trying to Get Home rolls with a slither of old eighties soul-disco, and Richie’s not afraid to add a rap.

It gets a deeper melting pot track by track, Hope in your Eyes, definitely electric blues rock, while Sign of Times, hints of electronica of yore. From there one’s ear settles on this wavering style, but there’s surprises again towards the ends, nothing is off the cards as folky goes rap and a non-compliance theme and jazzy piano bridge. It’s systematic, purposely blending and experimental, the finale characteristic of Adrian Sherwood’s On U Sound, who while I’m unsure if this is produced by them, Richie has worked with them in the past.

All I do know is, even if you recall attending Richie’s regular gigs at the Black Swan as he camped out the back of the Devizes pub, or not, here’s a upcoming marvel, who once graced our town with his presence, and proved himself as a inimitable talent then, this album is a pleasure to listen to; it’s long overdue you checked in on him again.