Echoes and dust

A brief and breathy sing-along opens Aidan Moffat's debut release with his Best-Ofs band: the latest offering from a man who knows a thing or two about love.

In addition to Arab Strap, who split in 2006, Moffat has offered up sleep-inducing electronica as L. Pierre; poetry and prose as Aidan John Moffat; and even a collaboration with Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite as Aloha Hawaii.

With his new band, however, Moffat returns with a collection of songs that have more in common with the Strap, though delivered in a much warmer, instruments-picked-up-off-the-floor kind of way. With minimal drums and electric guitars (‘Big Blonde’ and ‘The Last Kiss’ excepted), it’s organs, accordions and strings that accompany the majority of the tracks.

The link between all of Moffat's diverse projects (save L. Pierre) is, of course, his unmistakable voice. On ‘How To Get To Heaven From Scotland’, it's once again through both his meticulous choice of words – and the delivery of them – that his inimitable lyrical talents are brought out.

As the title suggests, Moffat deals with religion as well as his traditional themes (women, ladies, girls) on this record. In the ‘Atheist's Lament’, for example, he claims to extol the "laws of science" rather than any omnipotent being. But, some days, he admits, he wishes he might be privy to some higher connection, if only so that "he could watch over me, drop some hints and get me through".

As when Moffat sings so openly about love, sex and relationships, it's rarely with a sense of bravado: he needs as much help as the next man. 

In terms of instrumentation, ‘Atheist's Lament’ and ‘Ballad of the Unsent Letter’ owe something to the scaled-down band sound of the Tindersticks. And in the latter song, Moffat speak-sings of a man who, in a quite beautiful turn of phrase, "one night wrote a letter to explain his inside out".

Moffat's own inside is on show throughout the album and even when the headiness of being a heterosexual male begins to get a little too much, as on ‘Oh Men!’ – a tribute to ogling the female form ("sometimes it's just a bosom, sometimes it's just a wiggle") – Moffat neatly moves his sentiment on to a sincere promise of commitment within the song's closing minute. "My heart and hands are yours, just let me keep my eyes," he says. "I'll rip them out myself should infidelity arise".

Echoes of Arab Strap appear in the brooding ‘A Scenic Route To The Isle Of Ewe’ where the guitar line harks back to Malcolm Middleton's uncanny gift for eking out melody from the merest of finger-touches. Midway through, the track breaks down into a piano-led section

Continuing in this ambient strain, the strangest sounding track on the record is ‘Lullaby for Unborn Child’, where Moffat sings to his yet-to-be-born baby, accompanied by a heartbeat backing track. "If you need me, knock on the wall of your womb" he sings to his tiny progeny. Again, Moffat isn't shy of admitting his deficiencies here – there are "questions I can't answer, so much I don't know". 

What he can say for sure, however, is that "soon we'll share that heart above you" and, whilst put so devastatingly simply, this conceit remains one of the most powerful lines on the album.

‘How To Get To Heaven From Scotland’ is full of hidden gems like this, in fact. We suggest you spend some time with this warm, charming record, listening out for them. 

Top Tracks: 'Big Blonde', 'A Scenic Route To The Isle Of Ewe', 'Ballad Of The Unsent Letter'.

Released: February 16 on Chemikal Underground