Zulu Winter Stutter

The Truth: Once upon a shiny moonbeam there was a band called Zulu Winter who lived in London Town. They consisted of Will Daunt (vox / guitar), Henry Walton (guitar), Iain Lock (bass / vox), Dom Millard (keyboards) and Guy Henderson (drums) and forged a sound which foraged at the outer reaches of the alt.pop canteen.

After the briefest of dalliances with fierce panda a few lifetimes ago they became blog sensations, released their debut single 'Never Leave' on Double Denim and became the hottest band on Zane Lowe's fiery planet, a planet they toured with aplomb and musical sound bombs. All this hyperactivity peaked in 2012 when they released a dreamy long-dreamed-of debut album called 'Language'.

Now, two years on comes a follow-up of sorts called, with succint logic, 'Stutter'. Not so much a bona fide sophomore effort as a collection of studio and home recordings the band "didn't want to fester on a hard drive somewhere", 'Stutter' - as the title may or may not suggest – has evolved into a celebration of these never- (and almost never EVER-) released songs.

If this often resembles the sound of a band floating in space, ladies and gentlemen, that's fine because a curious concoction of blurred ideas and electric dreams ‘Stutter’ is: ten songs breaks all known mini-album length rules, for a start. For a follow-up three of these tunes reached the stage of recorded completion in the studio - we'll leave you to guess which ones - while the other seven tracks were ostensibly angelic demos, musical ghosts looking for a dignified burial. Not for nothing did we want to call this record 'Worked In Progress'.

But there is also musical cohesiveness amongst the 'Stutter' gibberish. The near-end result is gentle swirl of gurgling synthetics and sanguine funk grooves topped with heroically poetic observations. "Where do you and I fit in?" they ponder in 'Let Sleep Close Your Eyes', just one of many wistful thinkings scattered amongst the soon-to-be abandoned wires of the studio.

Some of this record sounds like a very sad ELO. We think that is somehow quite fitting, even if this is the sound of a band who could never find quite find a way of fitting in. Either way we have ourselves an over-sized mini-album release of some decency and great dignity.

It's a little musical farewell. For now.

1 Trigger; 2 Games ; 3 Heavy Rain; 4 Feel Love; 5 Other Man; 6 Need You Onside; 7 Silence Is Golden; 8 The Drift; 9 Let Sleep Close Your Eyes; 10 Bodies