Synth pop veteran Thomas Dolby has never made any secret of the fact that his father was an academic, with whom in his formative years he often traveled to places steeped in history. It was an upbringing which helped inspire his debut album, 1982’s Golden Age of Wireless, a record that even now retains a certain unique cache.
The origins of Londoner Mark Heffernan’s latest project as Pocket Lint are similar, but not the same. A Wunderkammer in this context he says is nothing as dusty as exhibits in a museum, more instead a curation of objects that define the self. Think things to know me by and you’re pretty much there.
By way of linking, each one of the album’s eleven songs relates back to a certain thing in this self-styled cabinet of curiosities. Sonically also its roots lie in the Dolby-esque restraint, but also as here present a lightness of touch which at the time so captured listener’s imaginations.
Opener From an Ancient Land sets off via a wailing guitar for some mysterious ancient place or another, but as an audio exhibition the most effective moments arrive in Clockwork Boy’s nursery rhyme patina, the vaporwave stylings of Nyx and the soulful Heartbreak’s First Teardrop. Closing out with the icily gothic spoken word recital Punishing Moonlight, Wunderkammer’s presents a musical whole greater than the sum of the parts, but its creator you feel is still holding some of the most interesting treasures back.
The Voice Of Unreason 