Grasscut

Unearth
Ninja Tune

Unearth is Grasscut’s extraordinary follow-up to 2010’s 1 Inch / ½ Mile (named Electronica Album of the Month by Mojo). 1 Inch / ½ Mile was a breath of fresh air: smart, experimental and exciting. Unearth, however takes a different direction with a focus on lyrics. Although, there is less distortion, and the album has a sound that is more subtle, it still retains that certain je ne sais quoi – very much in the same vein as its predecessor.

Concerned with place and the physicality of the world, Unearth is a manifestation of the band’s focus on location, each song inspired by a specific place in Britain. The opening track, Cut Grass, was influenced by a Larkin poem of the same name when one of the band members was on a train leaving Spurn Head, Larkin’s hometown near Hull.

Each of the songs included in the album has a back story, and it’s this deeply personal connection with each track that makes Unearth somehow more visceral and real. It can’t be denied that it’s pared down compared with 1 Inch / ½ Mile, but it works, and somehow seems an appropriate signifier of our current times. www.grasscutmusic.com.

Shirley Stevenson