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Review: 'KODIAK ISLAND'
'The Golden Section'   

-  Label: 'Musical BEAR Records'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '7th October 2016'

Our Rating:
This is a long way from the real Kodiak Island in Alaska with the only bear being in the name of the record label.

Band leader Jo Bartlett was actually born Guildford, Surrey in 1968 and is previously best known as the co-founder of The Green Man Festival with husband Danny Hagan.

She and Hagen were a musical partnership too and their output included releases under the appallingly stage name 'It's Jo And Danny'. One of their albums reveals the duo's hippy-ish origins by being called Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy.

I'm not sure if she and Hagen remain married but their musical partnership has certainly ceased, as has their involvement the now flourishing alt.folk festival - they sold their shares in 2012.

As a free agent, Bartlett has put out a couple of solo records but now appears with a three piece band consisting of producer Richard Handyside on guitar and flute, Mike Muggeridge on bass and Gareth Palmer on percussion.

The music on this group's debut album is billed as psychedelic folk but mostly sounds more akin to fragile indie pop, like a missing link between Stevie Nicks era Fleetwood Mac and The Sundays.

Gentle, melodic and understated, the unpretentiousness makes it an album which will be all too easy to overlook or dismiss. This would be a pity since the ten songs are warm-hearted and upbeat, albeit frequently tinged with a sense of longing and languor.

Real Thing, for example, is a jangly feel good pop tune but also a bitter-sweet love song of a romance that came and left with the Summer.

In The Sooner Bartlett sings with resigned pragmatism "The sooner this is over, the sooner we will be just friends".

After being thus lulled into a mood of melancholy wistfulness the album ends with a real flourish in the form of Second Around Time a joyously funky and flutey six minute finale that seems like it belongs to another project and leaves you wondering why the rest of the record isn't in the same vein.
  author: Martin Raybould

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KODIAK ISLAND - The Golden Section