Album Review: Karl Blau - Out Her Space

Karl Blau experienced a taste of wider critical acclaim on the back of his last album Introducing Karl Blau.

The title and the fact that it was a collection of country covers was somewhat misleading, given that he's already released something more than 20 albums across various projects.

With Out Her Space, Blau has shape-shifted into the world of avant-garde rock, funk and soul, eschewing his lo-fi origins and retaining the lush production quality of his last album.

There are clear comparisons that can be made with other inquisitive songwriters such as Bill Callahan and Will Oldham. Callahan and Blau also share a love of dub music, the latter reconfiguring the Paul Simon/bong-inhaling sound of Poor The War Away into Dub The War Away, a tripped-out bass-heavy excursion that would make Bill Laswell proud. Valley Of Sadness is an attempt at pastoral psychedelia, but it ends up sounding frivolous and unnecessary. Blue As My Name finds a nice brisk strum into Love territory, I've Got The Sounds Like (You Got The Blues) draws jazz horns into Blau's pulsing rhythmic orbit before the eight-minute Where Ya Goin' Papa goes on a poly-genre journey akin to Harry Nilsson singing the hits of every section in the record store. This is a fine exercise in fearless and inventive songwriting.