Inner Winter

On previous full-lengths Gentle Stranger have lived up to their self-proclaimed ‘post-clown’ cabaret tag by diligently committing themselves to a ragbag of ostentatious styles like some theatrical, curmudgeonly cross between The Divine Comedy and Sun City Girls. But Inner Winter finds duo Alex McKenzie and Tom Hardwick-Allan opting for a refreshingly cohesive approach with an embroidery of minimalist, melancholic folk tunes and strident Gaelic psalmody, connected by transitional interludes of mood-setting field recordings, static-saturated EVP broadcasts and monolithic Phill Niblock-inspired drones. Sorrowful recollections filtered through the prism of childhood innocence (‘Inner Winter’) and an old AutoTuned avian-tragedy (‘Kestrel (feat Martha Skye Murphy)’) permeate the frosty-fingered tapestry, drawing from the same hauntological wellspring as McKenzie’s other tradition-twisting outfit, Shovel Dance Collective. Particularly poignant is ‘Two to Carry’, Hardwick-Allan dolefully revisiting an ill-fated heavy-lifting mission from Gentle Stranger’s Love and Unlearn, accompanied by strikingly spare piano chords and guest Martha Skye Murphy’s spectral coo. Jesters’ tears have rarely tasted so sweet.