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$13.50
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ARTIST
TITLE
Dip
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
MELO 045LP MELO 045LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
5/1/2007

LP version. This is the third full-length release from Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat. Written and recorded before the Arab Strap breakup was finalized, Dip explores a quieter, more contemplative side of Moffat's musical personality. A giant sideways leap from the critically-acclaimed Hypnogogia (2002) and Touchpool (2004), Dip finds Moffat eschewing the drum loops and effects that characterized his previous recordings in favor of a more organic, live sound, with a specially-assembled group of Alan Barr (cello), Stevie Jones (double bass) and Allan Wylie (trumpet) complimenting Moffat on drums, keyboards, percussion and harmonium. The result is an album that takes us on a journey through the full range of human emotions, from "Ache"'s morose, mournful strings to the frantic, jesterly "Hike." Ending as it begins, with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, there's a sense of oneness to the album, as if it could play forever as a song cycle. This, says Moffat, is because Dip was conceived as a whole album, rather than a collection of odds and ends. So this is it; the sound of one of our generation's great chroniclers of urban squalor and messy relationships contemplating the mysteries of Mother Nature and delivering a dreamlike, immersive album as a result. But it's not necessarily an avenue Moffat will revisit any time soon.