Experimental country, neoclassical chamber folk, Scouse Americana. None of these quite fit Luce Mawdsley’s brand of instrumental alchemy. The Liverpool-based composer and guitarist’s latest album, Northwest & Nebulous, draws inspiration from queer experience and the coastal landscape of Merseyside to create a series of highly poetic pieces that play out like the soundtrack to a spaghetti western set on the sand dunes of Formby or the estuarine vastness of Crosby Beach.
Opener Latex Feather is characterised by a dialogue between Mawdsley’s guitar and Rachel Nicholas’ viola. It grows out of a seed of minimalism into a textural lushness that is almost Cocteau Twins-like in its depth. Roosting is full of Nicholas Branton’s bouncy, soft-soled clarinet, a perfect foil for Mawdsley’s guitar, which can go from a sad country and western weep to a kind of jazzy new-wave in the space of a few seconds. This jazziness and the overarching haziness of the sound represents a new direction for Mawdsley, whose previous releases have tended to be harder around the edges. Northwest & Nebulous is by far the most layered, complex thing they have created to date.
Sojourn is a stunning vignette, a mini folk opus with shades of the more cosmic side of American primitivism but with a rainy languor to it that sites it firmly in the dampest corner of England. Mawdsley’s playing is beautifully restrained; their tone is rich and distinctive. There are trace elements of Felt’s Maurice Deebank or The Durutti Column floating in the mix. The production right across the album is blessed by a lightness of touch, and the ensuing gauziness makes the record seem like it has emerged from several different musical eras at once. This is clearly part of Mawdsley’s plan: as a neurodivergent, non-binary artist, they are interested in the flimsiness of states and the porous nature of boundaries, and at points, this record comes across as an extremely personal reaction to change, both physical and emotional.
On Meltwater, a stately viola takes centre stage to usher in some widescreen grandiosity, but like everything here, it is laced with subtle touches, and the guitar has a dreamlike quality. All Seasons Swarm is the album’s most focused moment, a deceptively simple riff that circles and expands into psychedelic Magic Band strangeness. The stippled neoclassical patterning of the title track’s intro gives way to a fluid and exploratory piece that moves from the simplicity of a children’s television theme via short spells of dissonance to embrace a bold, melodic openness.
The Growing Rooms is more contemplative, less maximal. Jon Davies’ piano picks out an evocative path, a path which Mawdsley’s guitar strays from readily and soulfully. Late Light Sparkles, which closes the album, has the melody of a lullaby, slow at first before the viola is hastened along by a percussive bustle. A meditative, mind-expanding middle section then gives way to the melody once more: it is taken up first by the viola and then the guitar, seeming to rejoice in its own changeable nature.
Northwest & Nebulous is a beautiful album that addresses notions of queer identity in the context of an elusive and ever-changing landscape. Mawdsley’s approach is admirably openhearted and inclusive, and this results in a music that pings between genres without ever losing its own distinctive personality, ranging over liminal spaces and illuminated by a strange coastal shimmer. It provides an almost utopian glimpse of a particular corner of England, but more importantly, it shows a way of getting there by embracing queerness and unique personal expression.
Northwest & Nebulous is out now on vinyl and digitally via the Liverpool-based artist’s own imprint, Pure O Records.
Bandcamp: https://lucemawdsley.bandcamp.com/album/northwest-nebulous