Stanley Brinks and the Wave Pictures – Gin

Named after the drink that fuelled its recording, Stanley Brinks’ third collaboration with The Wave Pictures is a somewhat untidy collection that in its best stretches offers up raw bursts of inspiration, but with the odd off-moment elsewhere to suggest time at the bar might have been better spent at the drawing board.

Admittedly, the threshold between messy brilliance and just plain messy is a difficult one to pinpoint with regards an artist like Brinks, who since departing Herman Dune has generated scores of albums with near absolute autonomy, any frayed edges contributing to his appeal. Nonetheless, when a song falls as flat as Spinola Bay does here, it’s difficult not to yearn for a more discerning and incisive approach. Luckily, the rest of Gin exercises its creator’s idiosyncrasies more successfully, and, as on their previous two secondments, The Wave Pictures prove nicely suited to the record’s loose, improvisational style. [Chris Buckle]