Brian Eno built his career by being patient with music and impatient with its confines. The former saw him pioneer ambient music in the 70s while the latter freed him to explore production, visual art, festival curation, writing and other oddball projects.

Enjoying a high strike rate of acclaim, Eno came to occupy an enviable realm where he’s recognised by most, accessible to many, yet answerable to no-one. So when he casually resumes a series 37 years after starting it, barely anyone blinks.

The first part in Eno’s Music For Thinking series was 1975’s Discreet Music; the second was 1993’s Neroli. Lux is part three and Eno’s first solo offering in seven years. While the listening experience is uncomplicated, the back-story is not, typifying Eno’s increasingly restless multidisciplinary approach.  Lux was commissioned by the Great Gallery of the Palace of Venaria in Italy to embellish an art installation. As a hat tip to 1978’s Ambient 1: Music For Airports, Lux was then previewed at Tokyo Airport for four days. To balance out the high art hoopla, the public was invited to submit photographs online to illustrate the album’s streamed launch in what was called the Day of Light.

Split into four barely distinguishable episodes, the 75-minute composition is a return to Eno’s minimalist soundscapes. Composed of elongated strings dimpled by notes that ripple outwards like drops in a pool – piano tinkles, resonant bass plunks and gently droning metallophone chimes – Lux is a serene composition that makes so few demands on your attention it’s hard to resent the fact it doesn’t always hold it either. If Eno’s goal was to create a meditative space to encourage thoughts to take root and grow, Lux succeeds.
 
But so did Discreet Music. And so did Eno’s later ambient releases (not just those in the ‘Thinking’ series). Most of these, like Lux, also satisfied the deconstruction of the boffins who praised their sophisticated internal harmonic logic.

Thus, while Eno’s return to the pure ambient form doesn’t disappoint (because Lux, largely, is wonderful) it does deflate heady hopes he might have slapped down a new trump card. Hopes that a man so versed in innovation might have done something truly, wildly exciting. Instead, Lux operates as a reminder – not as a revelation, as it did three decades ago – that Eno is the best in the ambient business.

Though the reminder is timely. In September, Eno released his second iPad app, Scape, in which users arrange visual elements to create their own ambient music. “Here,” Eno says. “Think it’s easy to make an ambient masterpiece? Try it yourself.” And they did, by the droves. But after absorbing Lux’s seamless, brooding beauty, one wonders how many of these neophyte composers decided to keep their day jobs.

If that sounds cock-rock-y, be assured Beaches still eschew over-obvious riffs and hooks for a marbled wash of textures, tones and layers. The vocal harmonies and noise-pop vibe evoke female-fronted ’90s shoegazers Lush and Pale Saints as well as contemporaries the Vivian Girls. But beneath the shoegaze veneer there’s the smouldering surf guitar of ‘Keep on Breaking’, the Velvet Underground jangle of ‘Veda’ and the perfect storm of ‘Granite Snake’, where billowing clouds of feedback are anchored by a doggedly insistent bass.

Best of all, you can sing along or bliss out, eyes closed, as both listening states are well-serviced. 

This is Low’s tenth LP and their twentieth year together. Milestones that, for another band of similar cult status, would spark a flare-up of hyperbolic praise. But the music of Minnesota-based trio Low doesn’t befit hyperbole.

“You know our M.O.,” says singer and guitarist Alan Sparhawk. “Slow, quiet, sometimes melancholy, sometimes pretty.” And good enough to enchant Robert Plant (he covered two songs on 2010 record Band of Joy).

Built on the harmonies of Sparhawk and his wife and drummer, Mimi Parker, Low’s hallmarks are minimalism, slow tempo and slow burn. Anointed the flag bearers of ‘slowcore’ – which asserts that intensity is not bound to fast pace or volume – Low have occasionally betrayed the slowcore party faithful with fleshier pop-rock but, largely, haven’t deviated from doing a lot with a little.

This remains true on The Invisible Way, recorded by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. The languid acoustic lope of ‘Plastic Cup’ is a beautifully succinct, if bitter, appraisal of mortality, while the wistfully meandering guitar that opens ‘Amethyst’ is some of Sparhawk’s most expressive yet.

Parker sings the lead on five songs – instead of the usual one or two – which only works in the album’s favour if you prefer her vibrato to Sparhawk’s wry, more nuanced delivery, especially given she’s long provided harmonies for him but he doesn’t return in kind.

While piano, acoustic guitar and brushed drums are the record’s backbone, the Sparhawk-sung ‘On My Own’ is an amplified exception, delivering a spine’s worth of shivers with its stark tempo shift from pretty piano jig to the doom rock of Sub Pop labelmates, Earth.

Like this? Try these: Low, Drums and Guns; Low, Things We Lost In The Fire

The vision steals your breath: five robed Sufis, heads cocked, eyes closed, arms outstretched in supplication, spinning. Seeing Turkey’s whirling dervishes is an experience of sight, sound and soul that you never forget.

Sufis whirling at Hodja Pasha. Credit Paula Lobo

Yet an authentic performance is harder to find than you might imagine. In touristy Istanbul, several cafes and restaurants have whirling dervish evenings. But while the performances have justifiably become tourist attractions, the dance is a mystical Islamic ritual with deep spiritual significance, performed as a means to reach the divine.

It shouldn’t be followed by women belly dancing. And observers certainly shouldn’t sip on wine as they watch.

But these less-than-authentic performances serve a purpose. On my first day in Turkey – head spinning from Istanbul’s friendly, frenetic intensity – I see a glimpse of spinning robes in the window of an Istanbul restaurant and am gripped by curiosity. How do they spin so fast? Aren’t they overcome by dizziness? Why do they wear white robes and tall felt hats? What does it all mean?

Rugs in Goreme. Credit: Kate Hennessy

Sufism is the inner dimension of Islam. It focuses on the beliefs at the core of Islam, rather than law and practice. Like Buddhism, it blurs the line between religion and philosophy and, like Buddhist monks, Sufis strive to find enlightenment by shedding their outer selves and finding the divine within.  Sufism is generally progressive and tolerant of other beliefs.

“Do you travel to Konya?” a merchant at Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar asks. “Go to Konya. There you see dervish. It is best.”

Over coffee – served short, strong and muddy – with the call to prayer ululating around us, a Turkish friend tells me the merchant is right. I admit I’ve never heard of the Anatolian city of Konya. “Millions of Turkish people visit there on pilgrimage every year,” she says. Konya is the burial place of Mevlana Celaddin-i Rumi, known affectionately as ‘Rumi’, one of the most important Sufi poets and philosophers and founder of the 700-year-old whirling dervish order.

The fairy chimneys

But first, to Cappadocia, land of the ‘fairy chimneys’. It’s evening when we drive from Kayseri airport across a dark plain towards the township of Göreme. There are no lights anywhere and stars twinkle in the cold, silent night. Suddenly, we see a strange formation protruding up from the plain: a fairy chimney.

The next morning it’s like we’ve been beamed up overnight to the Star Wars planet of Tatooine. When we emerge from our cave accommodation we’re greeted by a lunar-like landscape carved from the lava and mud of ancient volcanoes. As Cappadocia’s unique combination of hard and soft rock eroded, it created mushroom-shaped towers and conical peaks: the fairy chimneys.

Fairy chimney homes in Cappadocia. Credit: Kate Hennessy

Yet they’re not merely strange rock formations. The chimneys conceal homes, hide-aways and churches, which explains the windows peeping from the top. Beneath the ground are 36 underground cities – though with 150 archaeological excavations carried out in Turkey annually, more may yet be found.

We’re eager to explore but breakfast in Turkey no quick affair. Even a modest spread includes cured meat, bread, raw tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, olives and condiments like chocolate spread, tahini, olive oil and molasses. Our hotel owner, Mustafa, drives us to the Göreme Open Air Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Like all the Turks we’ve met, Mustafa has an easy, dignified charm – hospitality comes naturally in Turkey.

The Museum is a condensed pocket of Byzantine-era cave churches with weathered frescoes on the walls; austere and almost primitive. Yet it’s their austerity that makes them so affecting. After the parade of cathedrals throughout Europe, visiting a cave church is like staring faith straight in the eye. There’s no stain glass or mosaics to marvel at; just carved-out spaces where the faithful came to pray. The museum is a wonderful introduction to Cappadocia’s history, which reads like an adventure novel of devotion, persecution and survival.

Just another day in Cappadocia. Credit: Kate Hennessy

We wander back to Göreme to smash some kebabs. Literally. A ‘testi kebap’ is casseroled in a terracotta pot all day then smashed open with a hammer at your table. Our waiter appears to enjoy the experience as much as we do and we’re struck, again, by how unjaded the locals are here. While they try to sell us their wares, bargaining in Turkey is a friendly game of wits. It also helps that the country is a shopper’s paradise with Ottoman-style jewelry, spices, perfumes, pashminas, sweets, coffee sets, fezzes, ceramics, leather shoes, hookahs and carpets all on offer.

The subterranean city of Derinkuyu is our next stop. Christian monasticism came early to Cappadocia as ascetics sought refuge in caves from the world’s distractions, devoting their lives to prayer, penance and fasting. When Arabs began raiding central Anatolia in the 7^th century, the monastic communities were literally driven underground. Historians think they only stayed underground until the marauders passed overhead but, even so, the claustrophobia, darkness, smell and oppressive boredom must have been gruelling, especially for children.

Minaret and moon. Credit: Kate Hennessy

Over a freshly-squeezed pomegranate juice, our guide Adem tells about Turkey’s unfulfilled quest to enter the European Union. He becomes grave when it’s raised, as do most Turks. “I think we should not waste any more time. We don’t need it. If it were that good then other European countries would not be in such trouble now.”

It seems to be an issue of hurt pride, complicated by the misunderstandings many Westerners have of Turkey. Islam is the primary religion here but when the Ottoman Empire dissolved and World War I hero Atatürk became president in 1923, he launched sweeping reforms to convert the new Republic of Turkey into a secular nation state where the role of religion was restricted. Women were emancipated, centuries-old religious social structures were dissolved and Western legal codes, dress, calendar and alphabet were introduced. The religious education system was replaced by a secular one. Many Turks are surprised to hear religion is taught in Australian public schools.

Our cave hotel. Credit: Kate Hennessy

The balloons wait in a field of red poppies. We climb into the wicker basket, arranging ourselves into our partitions like a human picnic pack. Furious blasts of hot air begin to pull at the basket and it skates sideways, gently skimming the grass. The gas is turned off and total silence descends as we rise up over a flat-topped plateau and drift above fairy chimneys of all shapes and sizes. Occasional blasts of fire redden our cheeks.

“Are you going to the moon Mike?” our pilot says to another pilot on his two-way radio. I turn to see a second balloon so high it’s half obscured by clouds. It looks fanciful and arcane, so lacking in grease, cogs, wheels or steel; the elements we’ve come to see as synonymous with physics-defying feats such as this.

One of the world’s best balloon rides. Credit: Marsel Van Oosten

Suddenly, balloons are everywhere, making the utterly bizarre Cappadocia landscape lurch into the utterly surreal. Staring down onto the rock plateau below feels much like a mellow snorkel in clear water. A blue balloon puffs by beneath like a jellyfish and the trees look like bunches of coral. Pockets of wildflowers beckon like tropical fish.

Looking down from our wicker basket in the sky. Credit: Kate Hennessy

That evening, we go to a bar called Red Red Wine housed in a rustic ex-stable. As we enjoy an apple-flavoured Nargile (Turkish water pipe) the owner points to a portrait of the much-loved Ataturk on the wall.

His hand creeps up to lie flat across his heart. “We need a new Ataturk now.” He recounts what Ataturk said about the ANZAC soldiers who died in Gallipoli. “They’re in our arms now; They are our sons too.”

Konya the devout

Disappointment awaits us in Konya. “No dervishes this time of year,” says the concierge. “Only on a Saturday.” Too late, we discover the seven-day Mevlana Festival is in December. Worse, it’s Sunday. Konya is interesting but we can’t stay seven days.

We get lost heading to the Mevlana Museum. There’s one million people living in Konya, yet just one street off the busy thoroughfare and there’s tractors chugging by, people herding chickens and the pleasant grassy small of grazing animals. Thankfully, a man with an impressively brushy moustache directs us to the museum.

Pilgrims at Mevlana Museum. Credit: Kate Hennessy

We pass under a silver gate with Mevlana’s couplets engraved on it alongside a steady flow of Muslim pilgrims. We feel very foreign in this former lodge of the whirling dervishes but are comforted to learn Rumi is one of the most popular poets published in the West with Madonna, Donna Koran and Oliver Stone just some of the Westerners inspired by his words.

The Museum features several beautifully bound Korans and the most valuable silk carpet in the world. In one room, a particularly reverent crowd of pilgrims gathers around a glass display box. In it, they believe, a small mother-of-pearl box contains a snippet of the Prophet Mohammed’s beard. In an adjoining room are the tombs of Mevlana, his father and his son, covered in velvet shrouds. Pilgrims are quietly praying everywhere I look.

Mevlana Museum. Credit: Kate Hennessy

The Museum’s audio-guide teaches us more about Rumi, who was born in 1207 in Balkh in modern-day Afghanistan. Zoroastrian Magi, Hellenistic philosophers, Christian missionaries and Buddhist sages all left their mark in Balkh, which incited a spirit of enquiry in the young scholar. He lived in several cities – including Baghdad, Mecca, Medina and Damascus – before settling in Konya in 1228.

Rumi developed a very close friendship with a Sufi disciple called Shams Tebrizi and they spent weeks alone philosophising and performing whirling rituals. Sadly, Tebrizi disappeared – probably murdered – and stunned by the loss, Rumi withdrew from the world to meditate and write his greatest poetic work, the 25,000-verse Mesnevi. The night Rumi died is still known as ‘The Wedding Night’ when he was re-united with Allah.

Dervish tombstones. Credit: Kate Hennessy

After Rumi died, his son Sultan Veled formed the Mevelvi whirling dervish order, founded on love and tolerance, with dance (called ‘Sema’) as one of its foremost ceremonies. Ataturk made the dervish order illegal in 1925 but in 1957 it was revived as a cultural association.

Whirling dervishes

We return to Istanbul well educated on sufism but unfulfilled in our quest to see a whirling dervish performance. But we are in luck. At a favourite Istanbul sweets shop, we discover that members of the Sufi Cultural Society are performing that evening at the HodjaPasha Cultural Centre.

The setting is perfect: an old domed bathhouse bathed in deep blue and red light. A quartet called a Mutrip enters featuring a tambur and a kanun (both stringed instruments), a ney (recorder) and a kudum (drum). I have never heard music like it. The harmonies are gentle yet filled with pace and adventure.

Whirling dervishes at Hodja Pasha. Credit: Paula Lobo

The Mutrip leave the stage and return with three singers, all wearing robes. Five dervishes enter wearing black cloaks (representing tombs) tall felt hats (representing tombstones) and white robes beneath (representing shrouds). There are three beats on the kudum, a plaintive melody on the ney and the dervishes position themselves in a semi-circle, bow, and discard their black cloaks, representing their escape from the tomb and readiness to dance for God.

They stand, quite still, arms crossed over their chest and hands draped gracefully over their shoulders. They walk towards one dervish and line up behind him. Then each dervish peels off and – as the choir sings – they start spinning one at a time.

As they spin, the circle of dervishes also slowly rotates. The dance represents a journey of spiritual ascent, whirling towards unity with god and perfection.

In the universe, everything, from atoms to the solar system to the blood in our bodies, revolves. Sema is a ritual, a spiritual journey, which the soul makes to God. (Hodjapasha Cultural Centre)

With their heads cocked sharply to one side, their arms come free and almost imperceptibly blossom upwards to take an outstretched pose; one hand facing down to humankind, the other facing upwards to Allah (“From God we receive, to man we give, we keep nothing for ourselves”).

They spin so fast they blur, like they may transcend before our eyes. I am holding my breath, captivated. It is somber, heartfelt, spiritual and perfectly dramatic. Their skirts billow out forming yet another perfect circle.

 They stop, bow and form a semi-circle again, displaying no signs of dizziness or haste. They are the incarnation of poise and dignity; of supplication and surrender. They pick up the cloaks and kiss the hem, don them, bow again, then they’re gone.

Hippies carrying pillows file into Paddington Uniting Church. An events company called My Heart Space is producing the evening and a guy in a company tee welcomes us. On a table dressed with pink candles and oil burners is a sign instructing us to ‘LIVE every moment’ and ‘LAUGH every day’. There’s a lesson about LOVE too, but a large pink heart obscures it.

None of Ben Lee’s support acts have begun, but already the church is full and people’s hearts fuller. Benevolent faces beam above spines that are Yoga-trained straight. Behind me a couple is just being: eyes closed, faint smiles, fingers lightly touching – the man wearing a round batik hat I haven’t seen this side of ’96. Nearby a guy waits in child’s pose, his girlfriend’s hand resting supportively across his coccyx. I hear a moist, spraying sound behind me, followed by an earthy aroma.

Israeli-born opening act Nadav Kahn sits cross-legged on stage. “This is a Hebrew prayer about listening to and hopefully connecting with the greater unity in this universe.” Some young women in the front row begin to sway in appreciation and, after Khan’s perfectly enunciated prayer-slash-chant, everyone knows instinctively not to clap.

I’ve been to several gigs here. Most attended by the usual gig-going suspects wafting about uncomfortably looking for a pew, trying to mask their misery that the bar only serves chai. While the church is a wonderful space to showcase the hushed nuance of musicians like Grand Salvo and Joe McKee, it has never felt quite right. But hemp hats off to My Heart Space, because tonight it does.

The crowd occupies the church in just the way a church should be occupied: they are a flock, as one.

Avasa & Matty Love are next, a zenned-out, loved-up LA duo who strum guitar, tentatively, while chanting and harmonising. Their “friend, sister and yoga teacher,” Ciela Ruiz Naupari, joins them for a song that’s for “for the mama inside us all.” They smile a lot – and those smiles are LA-white and beautiful – but beneath the teeth they seem deadly serious.

I make my way to the bar, colonised for the evening by a gluten-free wholefoods caterer. On the way there, a My Heart Space employee asks me to duck the projector so Ben Lee’s cover art can maintain its steady glow above the altar. We’re not talking a slight craning of the neck – the projector is about armpit high (or limbo high for the more supple among us), but he asks so agreeably that I duck, agreeably, too. In fact, the air of agreeability is so pervasive I almost forget to pay for my punch.

At the bar, an array of nourishing-looking, poo-brown morsels are arranged, squatly, on plates. There’s no chai so I ask what brew is being ladled. “Kombucha punch,” the girl says. Confused silence. “It’s a probiotic drink,” she urges. “Good for your gut.”

Appleonia is the stage name for Jessica Chapnik Kahn (better known to some as Sam from Home & Away). She’s the wife of Nadav Kahn and the co-writer on Lee’s new album. Whip thin, looking like a cross between Regina Spector and Fiona Apple and backed by sparse electric guitar, she uses her powerful pipes to sing about “the wolves of karma howling.”

Her confidence far eclipses her talent, but somewhere in the orbit back to us she becomes oddly mesmerising.

Appleonia tells us she’s working on a new project called The Shattering. “When you name something The Shattering, you start to shatter yourself,” she elaborates. “This song is called The Shattering.” The song’s chorus goes something like “When you call I’ll be shattering for you/When we fall I’ll be shattering for you.” So much shattering! I can’t look away.

Appleonia also tells us she’s reading a book called The Lost Bible. “It’s about symbols, like the crucifix and the manger, and where those symbols are in your body.” A sea of perplexed faces stares pleasantly and patiently back at her. “As in, where is the manger in your body? Where is the crucifix in your body? It’s pretty radical and revolutionary. This song is right out of that.” As if to prove the song is, indeed, “right out of” the book, Appleonia picks up the tome and begins singing straight from its pages. I’m reminded of the Spicks and Specks game in which Myf, Alan or a guest sings from the pages of some random book, though Appleonia’s version is funnier.

In beige pants and a pale pink button-up, Ben Lee personally introduces the fourth support act, Juan Ruiz Naupari from Peru, as “a teacher we can all learn from.” It really is quite the caravan of enlightenment Lee has arranged and, as the night rolls on, it’s hard not to appreciate his efforts.

Naupari’s sermon is translated from Spanish by his wife Ciela (who is also Lee and co.’s yoga teacher and Avasa’s musical collaborator). I begin to long for one of those infographics that precede complicated fantasy novels, mapping out everyone’s lineage. The combination of Juan’s fluid Spanish and Ciela’s soft-spoken translation is beautifully soporific. His words come in hypnotic waves of prophets, deities, spirits, concepts and revelations. In just 10 minutes, he ticks off The Southern Cross, Incas, The Bhagavad Gita, Herman Hesse, attaining perfection, Medusa, our divine nature, Shiva, suffering, Buddha, egos, Hinduism, ancient Greek gods, awakening, a golden eagle and a message from the future.

“Thanks for coming along to this experiment,” says Lee in a boyish Aussie accent, settling in the pose du jour: cross-legged on the stage. Applelonia is by his side and his band (pretty much all of the support acts) surround him supportively.

But wait, an experiment? Does that mean crowd participation? I log my closest exit.

“My spiritual path and my musical path have become intertwined,” Lee explains, redundantly. More than anyone else this evening, though, he’s relaxed and lighthearted, and it actually feels like we might be in for something fun. “This is more like a prayer than a concert. There’ll be some awkward bits and some failures. If we can stick it out together, it’ll go for about an hour, then I’ll play you some catchy songs.” He laughs. “It’ll be like having dessert.”

They begin with the record’s first track, ‘Invocation’, and move through Ayahuasca: Welcome to the Work in order. It turns out Lee’s apology isn’t required. Together they nail every song – no small achievement, since ‘Welcome to the House of Mystical Death’ scales a crescendo as joyously twee as The Polyphonic Spree and several songs are just meditative piano or experimental sounds and samples.

To conduct the banquet of harmonies that is ‘I Am That I Am’, Appleonia sits among the girls in the front row who, by now, are in Manson Family-esque ecstasies. Lee and band sing it so rousingly that a middle-aged man next to me announces, “I’m feeling all wriggly!” and flies to his feet to dance before squirming to the rear of the room to incite people into some free-form moves of their own.

The church feels increasingly like a Deep South revival meeting with the gospel threads of the album teased out to full effect.

And while Reverend Lee doesn’t talk much about ayahuasca – the hallucinogenic healing brew his album is about – the positivity filling the room is the same I was surrounded by in 2011 when I travelled to Peru to participate in a shamanic healing ceremony.

I reacted skeptically on hearing about Lee’s album. That skepticism turned to grudging respect when I heard it (and enjoyed it) and – after tonight’s fun, brave and at times ultra-silly show – I like him even more. “After I made this record I thought it might be my best music yet, but I thought I was committing career suicide,” Lee says.

I’ve taken ayahuasca and tried to write about it. I know from experience that Lee’s attempt to create a ‘sonic document’ of his ayahuasca experiences is ambitious to the point of unachievable. He knows that too – “As with any attempt to capture the experience of transcendence, it is ultimately a failure” – but he did it anyway and, in the process, didn’t fall too short of the mark.

In the immortal words of Gibby Haynes from Butthole Surfers: “The funny thing about regret is that it’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t.”

The supergroup that includes Mike Patton, John Stanier, Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard) and — this time around – Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantômas) has lost none of its chemistry, confidence and musicianship: these are fun, punchy, inventive songs and it’s always a joy to hear Patton whisper, roar and croon. I have no complaints, merely curiosity as to what might happen if Tomahawk used its talents to push into territory it didn’t already own.

Usually, if you can hear fan over folk star, the show is just dreadful. But I can now count on one finger the concerts at which the crowd sing-along has been enjoyable. Rodriguez.

The sing-along to 1970 track Sugar Man may be drowning out the main act but it also represents a feeling that something wrong – namely, Rodriguez’s retreat into relative obscurity after his two Dylan-esque records bombed – is still being put right.

While fame eluded Rodriguez in the U.S. and he returned in the early 70s to his Detroit home to work for decades in demolition work, unbeknownst to him, he was becoming a platinum-selling artist in South Africa.  Modest recognition also greeted him in Australia and he toured here in ’79 and ’81.

Last year’s ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ documentary, however, re-ignited interest in Rodriguez and saw his popularity ripple outwards even further.

That said, tonight’s show is mainly middle-aged South African couples. Due to poor eyesight, Rodriguez requires a steady arm to reach his microphone. Once there, he needs no assistance bar that of backing band, The Break, to play an hour-and-a-half of cuts from Cold Fact (‘70) and Coming from Reality (‘71).

The Break responds to Rodriguez’s placid delivery by playing with relative hush: no-one wants to be the guy that upstaged the septuagenarian. What Rodriguez’s voice lacks in projection, it compensates for in preservation – remaining that curious mix of artless yet aloof, camp yet streetwise, lisping yet at times clarion-clear. And though he is frail when walking, his splayed, five-finger, Spanish-style guitar playing is still strong. 

Clipped South African voices pepper him with requests and declarations of love. “You’re a legend Rodriguez!” yells one. To which Rodriguez responds, in words both light and loaded, “I just want to be treated like an ordinary legend.”

This quip aside, Rodriguez’s jokes are bad and his anecdotes bewildering. Yet his failure to master showbiz’s surface-level trivialities is genuinely endearing and not just because he’s now 70-years-old. It may have become a cliché of the Rodriguez experience, and it may be due to what’s partly a mythology (propped up by the  ‘Searching for Sugar Man’ documentary), but delivering to Rodriguez the fame that previously eluded him somehow eclipses the show’s flaws – as proved by the six-deep tangle of fans surrounding the merch desk afterwards.

“It’s hard to kill when you don’t know what side you’re on,” sings Christian Bland on ‘Broken Soldier’, both stern and unconcerned. The face-blasting stoner-riffs of ‘Evil Things’ beg repeat plays, while Ray Manzarek-style keys deluge down on several tracks. The band’s Velvet Underground influence is out-influenced by The Doors, with the lizard king himself summoned on the vocals of ‘This Day’.

Plenty of production, but not too polished, Indigo Meadow is the soundtrack for strobe light viewed through spliff smoke.

When Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett said Half Moon Run was “one of the most important bands debuting an album” in 2013, he presumably defined important as highly accessible folk-rock that sounds a lot like Radiohead.

But despite the brooding Greenwood-esque guitar licks of Give Up, the earnestness of this young Canadian trio is touching. Two musicians who can play and a singer who can sing have poured care like liquid gold into every song, which may not make them shine for the jaded among us but, song-writing-wise, the record is dud-free, at its best when soft rock is eschewed for the smoky-club slow jam of Need It or the tropical R&B groove of Nerve. Were a worried parent to hear Dark Eyes from their troubled teenager’s room they’d close their eyes in thanks. Then probably start spinning it themselves.

Roughly speaking, the tracks steered by Meluch’s mellifluous voice – as gentle as Elliot Smith and as dreamily detached as early Roger Waters – are brooding, bone-weary folk songs that bleed into each other via atmospheric transitions (Church bells? Rainfall? Birdsong?). The remainder are passages of luxuriant white noise that work their magic osmotically, similar to esteemed Kranky labelmate Tim Hecker. Other tracks wander freely between genres, such as Florid, which descends from whispery folk into a blissfully disorienting netherworld of bleeps and swirls of organ, reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett-era psychedelia. Censer’s calm waters succumb to an undercurrent of gently throbbing ambient techno while Homily places a mournful piano loop amid a downpour of static.

Hymnal’s best quality, however, is its least tangible: mood. Although each song ushers us to a different space or place, and none last longer than six minutes, each track also manages to build on, rather than break, the contemplative reverie this record induces.

Like this? Try these: Tim Hecker, An Imaginary Country; Labradford, A Stable Reference