Primarily acoustic guitar and vocals, Boduf Songs also benefits from tasteful sprinklings of cymbals struck and bowed, toy piano and field recordings.
The sound is rather like a cross between In Gowan Ring and Elliot Smith with a touch of Jim O’Rourke thrown in for good measure. Boduf Songs lacks the witchy medieval quality of In Gowan Ring but does share with B’eirth a similar gentle acoustic quality and almost-whispered voice. Some songs, Grains comes to mind, skew more towards singer-songwriter acoustic pop not entirely unlike Elliott Smith.
The album is prettied-up with birdcalls and drugged-out with backwards snippets. But the meat and potatoes of Boduf Songs is Sweet’s voice and quite accomplished guitar playing. The guitar gets it’s most impressive workout on Ape Thanks Lamb which has echoes of Windham Hill founder William Ackerman, British-Isles folk guitar stalwarts like John Renbourne, and a touch of medieval that I for one would love to see further explored on future Boduf Songs releases.
Packaged in a cardboard sleeve with blood red arcane drawings, it looks as appealing as it sounds. This one hasn’t even hit the record shops as of this writing but Kranky’s already got Mat working on a sophomore album in a studio this time around; I’ll certainly be looking out for it, may have worn out this one by the time the next rolls around.
