Chris Letcher – perhaps best known to local audiences for his wonderful partnership with Matthew Van Der Want in the late Nineties, resulting in cult albums Low Riding and Bignity – has been stealthily building a songwriting career in London. It is telling that he is also involved in film composition (he scored Claire Angelique’s My Black Little Heart, had some songs in the recent Bang Bang Club, and is currently completing BBC Film and Television productions) – his music is too complex and nuanced for Pop, but have the narrative reach of the cinematic. Spectroscope is named after the album’s deliberately eclectic spread of songs – each a genre or stylistic atmosphere of its own. Following the dark, moody, acclaimed Frieze (2007) (which entered the Top 20 of US College Radio charts), Spectroscope is like stepping into a psychotropically lit forest – sensuous details humming and leaping. The album’s canvas oozes in rich orchestrations, from digital to Classical. Somehow reminiscent of David Byrne in its surrender to the All of emotional scapes and musical possibilities, this is parallel-universe Pop, Pop that celebrates and explores the entirety of the human range.
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