Valet - Naked Acid

A follow-up to her Kranky debut Blood Is Clean, Honey Owens' latest release as Valet pursues a similar line of enquiry to the homespun avant-garde songwriting you'd find on a Grouper or Islaja album. There's a more emphatic psychedelic element to Owens' work (you need only look as far as the outlandish sleeve art to realise that), much of which stems from some searing, freeform guitar work, as exemplified by the spiralling blues jam 'F**k It'. While Owens' voice can sound oddly vacant, drifting with a lo-fi reverberation over the course of much of Naked Acid, those wild electric lead parts really inject a distinct sense of character into these songs. There's plenty of variety on this album too, with pieces ranging from straight-up droners like 'Drum Movie' to loop-based electronic cuts like 'Streets', but for all the album's weirdness the main attraction here has to be Owens' more conventional songs, like the wonderful 'Fire' which condenses the Valet sound to one voice and one guitar. Lovely stuff - Highly Recommended!

Valet - Naked Acid