Listening to this Flyte record on a drizzly autumn day, as feels intended, casts a warm glow across the room. Like the crackling embers of a fire, the British duo of Will Taylor and Nick Hill exude a cottagecore coziness more than ever before on their self-titled third album. Flyte find magic in reducing music to something elemental — Simon & Garfunkel are the obvious comparison — and organically human. Not to be all old-rockstar-yells-at-modern-music, but there's something refreshing about taking it back to the basics of a couple acoustic guitars and Taylor and Hill's kismet voices in harmony. And that's not to say you won't hear other instruments (including synthesized ones), or even voices on the album: a swell of strings closes out the lyrically playful "Better Than Blue," which opens with, "Love is a tangerine healer / It makes life an easy-peeler."
That's a sentiment — the molten core — at the centre of Flyte's tenderness, exemplified by the grandness of little joys with the gentle sway of the attempted realistic wedding vow, "Even on Bad Days," which features a perplexing flute-like synth melody on the bridge. The other voices that join Taylor and Hill are Billie Marten on "Don't Forget About Us," where every line crashes into a charming "Uh-huh," and their neighbour, Laura Marling, who sings the second verse of the dizzying single "Tough Love," which harnesses the speed of light (a.k.a. 6/4) to hold time in suspension.
And it really is all about playing with time, rewinding and pushing it forward in nearly equal measure (though of course we're gonna give a slight edge to the nostalgic). Producer/"vibes man" Andrew Sarlo's feather-light touch bolsters the introspective mood, conjuring a candlelit leaf-through of old journal entries and photographs with fresh eyes, clarified by the wisdom of hindsight. Not that they need it; "I've got a good memory," Taylor sings on "Defender," pushing his tenor to new heights while awash in bright, sonorous guitar tones that likewise find themselves casted away, in flight to the high heavens for a sustained swath of strings — fading in and out of the cache, drifting off to sleep or waking dreams of small moments soaked in sunlight.
(Nettwerk)That's a sentiment — the molten core — at the centre of Flyte's tenderness, exemplified by the grandness of little joys with the gentle sway of the attempted realistic wedding vow, "Even on Bad Days," which features a perplexing flute-like synth melody on the bridge. The other voices that join Taylor and Hill are Billie Marten on "Don't Forget About Us," where every line crashes into a charming "Uh-huh," and their neighbour, Laura Marling, who sings the second verse of the dizzying single "Tough Love," which harnesses the speed of light (a.k.a. 6/4) to hold time in suspension.
And it really is all about playing with time, rewinding and pushing it forward in nearly equal measure (though of course we're gonna give a slight edge to the nostalgic). Producer/"vibes man" Andrew Sarlo's feather-light touch bolsters the introspective mood, conjuring a candlelit leaf-through of old journal entries and photographs with fresh eyes, clarified by the wisdom of hindsight. Not that they need it; "I've got a good memory," Taylor sings on "Defender," pushing his tenor to new heights while awash in bright, sonorous guitar tones that likewise find themselves casted away, in flight to the high heavens for a sustained swath of strings — fading in and out of the cache, drifting off to sleep or waking dreams of small moments soaked in sunlight.
