"...Ideal for late night listening, even at lunchtime. 4/5."
author: Logo Magazine
Not many EP’s clock in at forty-five minutes, that’s a whole album in old (vinyl) money, still fewer can fill each of those minutes with interest. More remarkable still is that Calamateur is the work of one pair of hands, those of Andrew Howie. He shares an outlook, if not a sound, with Ed Harcourt, and he shares a sound (if not an outlook) with the likes of Damien Rice and Josh Rouse. Confused? Don’t be, Howie is a simple man who writes as though guided by voices, massaging his words through a voice as swoonsome and melancholic as the finest American roots singers, yet his basic palette includes not just acoustic guitars but also a light drizzling of understated electronics. Ideal for late night listening, even at lunchtime. 4/5.
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"...nothing short of brilliantly absorbing..."
author: Is This Music?
It's as if acoustic music in Scotland, once the preserve of wooly-pullovered real ale-quaffing beardies, has been liberated. Rejoice! because while actual folk music deon well is a rarity, alternative songs done on acoustic guitar are exploding around us. theonewhoflew, Ally Kerr and even Aereogramme can all captivate an audience with some spellbinding stripped-down songs. Joining this group are Calamateur, last spotted making atmospheric soundscapey samplefests, but the 8 tracks here are nothing short of brilliantly absorbing, indeed on 'Here Beside' you forget it's just one man and a guitar. With reverberant haunting vocals and occasional augmentation by keyboards, the stark production only adds to an impressive set of eerie 'folk' tunes.
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"...bloody good..."
author: The List
...Fellow weegies Calamateur are bolder still. Their 'Son of Everyone' EP (Autoclave) (3/5) is not only ludicrously long at 45 minutes (OK, let's call it a mini album then, though a fair chunk of the running time is silence) but it still manages to be bloody good with it, coupling alt.country strumming with tortured lyrics.
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