Ed Dowie s The Obvious I is nothing if not impeccably tasteful, finds Marc Burrows
If you’re looking for an excuse to buy that new set of fancy headphones, Ed Dowie has just given you a really good one. The sonic detail on display in this blossoming petal of a record deserves the very best entry into your ears. Dowie quit the pop game to study experimental music following his stint with turn-of-the-Millenium indie boffins Brothers In Sound. As on his debut, 2017’s
The Uncle Sold, the extra swotting benefits us all. The snap of a digital snare vibrates out from the back of your head and seems to ripple gently across the room. Synth lines, aeroplanes, and creaking furniture drift across your ears; strings and guitars thrum somewhere over in a distant corner of your house, sneaking in to briefly add colour and shade to this or that passage. It’s quite something.
Patrick Clarke
, February 22nd, 2021 10:10
Ed Dowie speaks to Patrick Clarke about the making of his bold and beautiful second solo album ‘The Obvious I’, informed by his experience in choral, pop and experimental music, and a newfound focus on the personal
Photos by Felicity Hickson
You can neatly divide Ed Dowie’s musical education into three distinct phases. As a child he was a chorister and taught piano by his composer father. In his late teens, he formed Brothers In Sound alongside Paul Hanford and Andy Guttridge, with whom he lapped up the joys of a flush late-90s music industry and released three sublime lo-fi psychedelic pop EPs on Regal Recordings, later collected as the band’s one and only album