The man formerly behind East India Youth, William Doyle’s first album under his own name, Your Wilderness Revisited, was one of 2019’s most off radar joys; a loosely threaded concept piece around themes such as adolescence, grief and erm…town planning, it seemed that only its creator’s lack of profile held it back from appearances on more best of lists.
Great Spans Of Muddy Time is not, however, so much a follow-up as an attempt to scratch well beneath the surface of its predecessor’s sincerity and charm.
Named after TV presenter Monty Don’s description of his feelings towards depression, Doyle uses it to deliberately step back from uniformity and polish, rejecting the ‘ceaseless tinkering’ he’d indulged in in times past.
Losing the comfort blanket of having just another edit was also partly by fate; when his hard drive failed the only way to proceed was by using material which had been transferred already to tape.
The old medium served to capture a loer-fi, more spontaneous version of himself as a writer, facets he’d seemed unwilling to completely reveal until now.
One aspect with which the public were familiar with was an ability to craft a tender, blissful pop song; opener I Need To Keep You In My Life has a nursery rhyme quality, floating on an ebbing synth line, although the haze of And Everything Changed (But I Feel Alright) finds itself almost sawed in two by, of all things, a proudly wired guitar solo.
So much for what we thought we knew. Inspiration came here from English mavericks such as Robert Wyatt and Syd Barrett, distinct perspectives that viewed orthodoxy as something in the way.
This explains the inclusion of half-a-dozen abstract soundscapes, pieces which tilt variously at avant-garde folk on Somewhere Totally Else, New Uncertainties droning skeletal ambience and the cinematic atmospheres (a sea of thoughts behind it).
Superficially, this is an exploration about nothing more than being nothing like the thing that came before it, like a younger sibling trying to fiercely project a contrasting identity.
Doyle roots his prodigal work sometimes in the everyday sight of physical memory – endless tour van trips across the Pennines, long walks, widescreen views and cosy pubs to name a few – and on Nothing At All musically at least captures the rare euphoria of freedoms society used to take for granted.
It’s on the almost title-track Theme From Muddy Time that the listener is circled back to a resolution for the inner workings of the mind.
With its opening phrase, ‘Terrible time in my life’, and later recounting days spent, ‘Throwing the hours away’, Doyle opens up the book of his head once more; as the background pulses, he navigates the maze of self-realisation.
The song comes to no specific conclusion, rolling forward much like most people’s lives, into moments of light and shade with no forewarning of either.
The core message though is that time, whilst it cannot always heal, at least brings iterative distance from traumas that cannot be undone.
As breaking with the past is Great Spans Of Muddy Time’s recurring motif, William Doyle subverts himself and, in doing so, has made another highly distinctive record at right angles to the one before.
Qualifications in urban planning to enjoy it are not necessary.
