Bonnie Prince Billy - Lay & Love
[Domino]

There isn't anything Will Oldham has touched in the last 14 years that has dissapointed and anything featuring his name, whether it be any of the Palace-related releases, as one half of Superwolf or as this alias Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, quality is assured.

Underlying muffled beats and swampy, slow-paced bass directs the track, in what can only be described as a distant relative of Boom Bip's Roads To Roll. This opening ambience sounds like Lay and Love could quite happily fall down a route of either experimental hip hop like Why? or some quasi-slacker tune like early Beck.

Of course this begins to fade once a duet between Oldham and Dawn McCarthy (she of Faun Fables) kick in. Add a sparsely picked guitar and warm, muffled recording and the song soon falls into the usual blend of beautiful Americana-tinged folk that made last year's The Letting Go the epic masterpiece we loved to bits. Beautiful.

Track Listing:

1. Lay & Love
2. Senor
3. Going To Acapulco