The Douglas Firs – Happy As A Windless Flag

Kicking off with a sound like The Free Design shaking hands with Orange Juice, the long gestation period of this album of solo compositions from The Douglas Firs – aka Jesus H. Foxx member Neil Insh – certainly seems to have been well rewarded.

The Douglas Firs - Happy As A Windless Flag

Happy As A Windless Flag‘s opener ‘I Will Kill Again’ contains a beautiful and affecting melody that embeds itself in your brain from the first time of hearing. Whilst that song’s most definitely upbeat, the overall vibe of the album however is quite dreamy and laidback (only track seven ‘The Shadow Line’ and the latter half of ‘Balance Of Halves’ buck the trend a bit by getting a touch loud and heavy). Think Atom Heart Mother and you’ll get some idea of the cosy feeling that is inspired by the likes of the instrumentals ‘Sepulture’ and ‘Future State’.

Elsewhere things start off in a found sound vein and then get mildly folky (‘The Quickening’) and the Bonfire Night recording in the background of ‘Nature And Nurture’ is emotive enough to make you wish just a wee bit that it was Autumn already. The whole thing though fits together seamlessly, on the whole, without any major jarring caused by changes of tempo etc, so clearly the production’s been just as important to those involved as the recording oppotunities fitted in whenever and wherever possible since work began in 2004.

Closer ‘Soporific’ bears comparison with the work of King Creosote and is a fittingly downbeat final track which manages to showcase further depths in Insh’s compositional abilities. Whilst album number two is unlikely to take anywhere near as long to become a solid reality in the stereos of the nation, it’s very probable that once played this first offering will be a regular feature in your listening selection up till the new one displaces it – albeit only from the player and not your affections.

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