Short Reviews [Tim Hunter - 2020 - "Mountains, Moors and Coast"]

Multi-instrumentalist Tim Hunter was first introduced to me by Thierry Sportouche of Acid Dragon, as together they work as Silver Hunter, but I have not come across much of his solo work prior to this. Living in Knaresborough in North Yorkshire, he has often been musically inspired by the countryside close to hand, and here we find him moving across the county from West to East, starting with the Three Peaks and ending in the sea. Here we have a release which really does benefit from having the CD booklet to hand, as there is a photo of each place, along with the story behind it. This takes me back to the old days when we used to listen to records and read the lyrics or look at the artwork, but here the concept is to play the music and look at the photo and imagine being there. Tim provides synth on all tracks, guitar on 5 of the 12, and sax on 3, and the result is something which for the most part is quite pastoral and restrained. The guitar is used to provide additional elements and edge and is rarely the focal point, while the sparing use of saxophone is incredibly effective, especially on “The Hole of Horcum”. However, the overall sound is very much that of a single musician working at home, and there are times when the balance is a little off, while fading out music is never a good idea. It is pleasant, yet is rarely anything more than that, and there are times when the synthetic drums are a little too obvious, while some of the chosen keyboard sounds can a little twee at times. The result is that it is an interesting way of gaining insight into one of the UK’s great counties and its heritage and landscape, but whether purely musically it is something I will often be returning to is another matter altogether.