'Pinstripe Blues' EP by Alys Rain

Before Christmas 2024, Alys Rain sent me her song "Pinstripe Blues" which was intended for release as a single early in 2025: consequently I wrote a review which has not appeared so far & never will.

The first delay was that Alys (also known to the world as Izzy Hadlum) intercepted me before I could share the article as she felt that the mix needed a little extra work. This initial postponement was extended as she then went off and had various adventures off the grid & unfortunately some ill health, but now the song has finally been released along with two more tracks ("The Sea" and "Oak and Ash and Thorn") as the ‘Pinstripe Blues' EP . As I bumped into her several times during those months, she was able to keep me updated & although I remained keen to tell you what I knew, she didn't get close to breaking the record of three years between my writing a review and the track coming out: which still sits with Orange River Remedy and their "Confusion (Slight Paranoia)" single.

These three songs (which were actually recorded as far back as February 2024) were recorded with Ross Davidson and after all the fine tuning, she professes herself to be "..really happy with the sound, production and feel achieved with these recordings,.." and who could possibly complain at someone seeking perfection?

Also on the EP is the incredibly multi-talented and ubiquitous Louis Scheuer (is there a local act currently he's not part of or collaborating with?) who provided  shruti box, percussion and vocals on "The Sea" and "Pinstripe Blues".

So what are these trio like? Well you'll know from past reviews that Alys is really quite experimental on record (we reviewed her most recent ‘In Tension' EP in 2022) and although placed within a broad alt-folk landscape, most of her work explores sounds, is not afraid to delve into lo-fi techniques and you can certainly use the expression avant garde accurately.

Live however, she doesn't go to reproducing these sounds via lots of kit: you get her and her acoustic guitar and the songs are presented as such: definitely veering towards the folk. I see she's now self identifying as "shoegaze-infused dark-folk drone" which appears to be a genre unique to herself (great) and I think does a decent job of encompassing both sides of her presentation.

"Pinstripe Blues" itself is probably too long a song for Classic FM to play on air (as well as being outside their tiny playlist) but the song is arguably classifiable as classical.

It starts just like a guitar concerto might (the flamenco flourishes reminded me at once of Joaquin Rodrigo) but then proceeds to offer a range of movements which flow into one another remarkably smoothly. I used the expression "classical" about the track "Speak Softly" from her last EP & I think this piece is a definite development of the direction she was going on that occasion.

If it kicks off in Spain, it soon heads eastwards & becomes very Indian for the second passage

Despite being apparently an instrumental travelogue for so long, after five and a half minutes, light, wordless vocals enter the sonic picture & very gradually grow in prominence, though throughout, the pictures are painted with sounds, not lyrics.

As I said earlier, there are two performers on "Pinstripe Blues": in fact a key part of the shifting dynamics of this long piece is how the arrangement becomes denser & more detailed at times with the various parts interacting powerfully especially at those communal passages.

She talks of "filling the liminal mid-land void with meandering lofi guitar" and the guitar (and everything else) do go on quite a journey within the structure: repetition is not much of a feature. However it seems a lot more purposeful than "meandering" suggests: though to the listener, it certainly steers you along a path you really cannot predict the course of: which is nice.

It's this lengthy & compelling trip you are being escorted on which is the beauty of "Pinstripe Blues": hypnotic in many places and way outside formulaic pop structures. The song certainly is not a blues format at all: it may refer to some sort of emotional state but it's the antithesis of the accepted genre structured approach: which may well be an ironical point its composer is making in choice of the title. What she refers to as "lo fi" does keep the track emotionally true as the blues aims to do, so that may be a factor also. As for the pinstripe element: an ironic comment (a la "execute executives") on conventional society?

"The Sea" features the same duo and again takes its time exploring (it's six and a half minutes in duration), starting in the same cultures as the title track but thence taking a different road: which obviously is a maritime one.

Although the intricacy of the arrangement (one of its glories) would be impossible to replicate live in a solo context, this song is arguably the closest Alys/Izzy has come to closing the gap between the sound she makes in the studio and that you hear live: this one will I'm sure work really well in concert with any adaptation not diminishing the overall impact of the composition.

This, in fact sounds to me like it has a poem as a basis for the lyrics (as it's a self composition, possibly that's how she began). More than that, I'm also sticking my neck out & suggesting that were it not for the length again, "The Sea" might be her best chance at getting broad airplay for one of her tracks. I don't suppose for a minute that she would contemplate a Radio Edit but if I had to cite an entry point track for anyone seeking to explore her music, I'd go for this one.

"Oak and Ash and Thorn" however undeniably originates in a poem: ‘A Tree Song' by Rudyard Kipling (from ‘Puck of Pook's Hill') as interpreted by folk singer Peter Bellamy. At this point you are probably expecting something terribly and quintessentially English but Alys Rain is not going to pander to your expectations: though Kipling might have recognised and approved  the Indian aspects of the arrangement.

Leaning quite hard on the drone side of her music, Alys extracts the menace from the source and amplifies this aspect: if people enacting Wicker Man rituals were looking for an addition to their repertoire, here's a contender.

And this illustrates an aspect of her work which transcends the labels: pretty much all her tracks would work well as part of soundtracks (though to very different films), whether as traditional lyrical as this last one or her more esoteric early experimental works. I throw it over to the readership now to work with her to create the movies to fit the songs.

Yes, it's ended up being the best part of four years between releases but Izzy has her eye on fresh music already: "It also feels cathartic to finally release these songs, to make way for the new." Watch this space.