AFTER three albums fronting Brooklyn-based trio Real Estate, singer and guitarist Martin Courtney branches out on his own with a winning collection of tuneful psychedelia. The 10 songs plough a pretty consistent furrow through Big Star/Byrds territory, though the addition of orchestral arrangements on songs like Before We Begin and the title track itself recall pretty much anything Liverpool's musical seer Mick Head has done from The Pale Fountains onwards, but particularly his landmark 1997 album The Magical World Of The Strands.
Elsewhere new single Northern Highway turns on a chiming guitar progression, Focus floats on a sea of complex vocal harmonies and tremolo and Foto is wistful dream pop of the sort Real Estate themselves peddle. But it's Vestiges, which Courtney posted on Soundcloud two months ago by way of a teaser, which is the standout track: a Beatlesy, hook-laden slice of pastoral rock.
As his Real Estate bandmates Matt Mondanile and Alex Bleeker occupy themselves with their own side projects – respectively Ducktails and The Freaks – Courtney’s own efforts seem to be bearing fruit too.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here