Fang,Brown - Sherwood Pines - VINYL LP

To a degree, all musicians are a product of their environment, the places they record and the venues they play. For proof, check out the alumni of the n-wave era CBGBs venue in New York, Cabaret Voltaire's Western Works studio in Sheffield or more recently London's Total Refreshment Centre.We can now add to that list the Constellations Workshop in Colwick, Nottingham, a project that provides employment through making studio furniture, for out-of-work musicians. It was here, after-hours, that the music on Brown Fang's impressive and ear-catching debut album took shape.Both members of Brown Fang, bassist John Thompson and guitarist Henry Scott AKA Henry Claude, have a long association with the Constellations Workshop. Though their musical projects are manifold - Thompson having toured with the likes of The Nectarine No9 and The Selecter, with Scott being both a mainstay of Nottingham jazz circuit and recording ambient music as Fang Jr - the work provided by the community-minded project has kept their heads above water and allowed them a space to record in when the shutters go down and the bandsaws get switched off.Yet the music showcased on Sherwood Pines is more morning-fresh and sun-kissed than industrial and sawdust-sprinkled. Combining the pair's brilliant musicianship - think languid bass guitars and Pat Martino-esque jazz guitar licks - with saucer-eyed electronics, occasional downtempo drum machine rhythms and plenty of glistening special effects, the set's eight tracks are as blissful and becalmed as an early morning saunter through Sherwood Forest on a misty autumn morning.For proof, check epic opener 'Tracing Paper', a slow-build ambient soundscape in which bubbly electronic lead lines and colourful chords sashay around Scott's sparkling, laidback guitars, and the beguiling 'That's All You Can Think', a subtle tribute to Steve Reich masterpiece 'Electric Count