Enfant Bastard - The Best of Enfant Bastard

Everyone needs a bit of Enfant Bastard in their lives. Artists like Ariel Pink have managed to push lo-fi to its creative limits, but Enfant Bastard, with songs like Joanna Newsom 666 and You Are My Fucking Sunshine is less about technique and more about the irreverence. This Best of compilation isn't trying to impress the pants off anyone with its clever recording or judicious sampling, nor does Mr Bastard hide behind the distortion pedal as a means of filling in the spaces between semi-melodic song sketches. Rather, tape crackle hisses away in the background, instruments slop about all over the place, and everyone sounds wasted - like they just rolled in from the pub and decided to write and record an entire album in five minutes, resulting in the odd flaring up of relationship-killing drunken honesty. Making things seem effortless is a skill in itself; sounding this exquisitely rough is enthralling. [Ewen Millar]