A Menagerie For One is a seductively apt title for the collection of songs within it. If a picture is worth a thousand words then surely the title alone paints a thousand pictures to its listeners long before they press play, these few words evoke its enclosure beautifully.

The second album from Erskine Lynas was written and recorded in 2018 and continues where his debut record (released in 2017 by Local Action) left off, this time though there’s a conscious effort to make music without the reliance of bright synthesisers, instead the more muted musical palette puts an increased focus on Lynas’ songwriting.

The influences are loosely tied to Peter Gabriel, ‘Spirit Of Eden’ by Talk Talk, Yo La Tengo’s ‘And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out’ along with films such as Shane Caruth’s ‘Upstream Color,‘ a concrete influence in this anthology however is that of the sea, it appears regularly throughout which makes sense if we consider the artists locale on the shores of a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean but geography aside, there’s something else going on with this relationship, one that is not only significant but poetic and far-reaching.

“Our faces wet with north sea spray/Green devours gold/Alchemy/Beaming faces on a plastic front/ A magnets power versus love” - All Golden (2716)

This record is delicately assured, vocals raw, mysterious, sometimes faint but always pure. The conversation in Notes On A Fiddle Case (Isabel) for example, is curious and intriguing, the opening lines read;

Don’t say that to me

Why?

Because it sounds like the remnant of a past life.

Unanswered questions keep you coming back. Full of surprises, A Menagerie For One offers much to the listener, ethereal, melancholic, distant, occasionally jubilant it’s an album that highlights an artist operating well beyond his years.