CALLUM EASTER
System LOST MAP / MOSHI MOSHI
Energetic second from 2019 Scottish Album Of The Year nominee
8/10
Unusually, Edinburgh’s Callum Easter demands the designation “Eno-esque” not for his second album’s ambient nature but for its wilful jumble of sounds, which recalls the Pop Professor’s early solo years. “Lose Sometime”’s primitive keyboards and “What You Think”’s fuzzy guitars and honky-tonk piano suggest Suicide playing at glam, and the latter’s boosted by a choir of childlike Marc Bolans that also graces “Find ’Em A Home”’s furious dissection of privilege and poverty. “Honey Bee”’s drawled vocal raises ghosts of Arab Strap and its metallic percussion The The’s “Infected”, while “This Feeling” concludes with anarchic dub. Baby’s on fire.