Now anyone who knpws me, knows how all over the place my music tastes are, a legacy from working in my Our Price days with Johnny Hayward and the influence of a deputy manager, who while owning every single release ever put out by alternative tentacles had a real soft spot for the Beverley Sisters, you never knew walking in on a morning whether you’d have S.O.D- Speak English or Die, Julie London or Spiritualized greeting you. It blew my mind and I think showed me that when it comes to Music, there are no boundaries listen to what you want if you like it you like it if not don’t worry try something else, just don’t become fixed within a genre.

Where am I going with this pre-amble? I recently got sent through an artists LP (Keeley) with a could you give this LP a listen?

Reading the blurb proved interesting “Keeley’s songwriting is unique in that all of her songs are about the same subject matter — the murder of German backpacker Inga-Maria Hauser in 1988 in Northern Ireland. Inga Maria was 18 years old and backpacking around Europe, she was due to get the train to Dublin from Belfast on April 6, 1988 but sometime between landing at Larne on the ferry from Scotland to trying to get the Belfast train she was abducted and driven to a forest and brutally murdered. Despite many leads pointing to the culprits, the case has never been solved. Keeley’s homemade video explores the ‘travel and loss’ narrative. 

Keeley’s involvement in this case since 2016 has been the subject of a BBC Northern Ireland Documentary “Murder In The Badlands” and a film about the case (featuring interviews and music by Keeley) is being produced for release sometime in the near future.

So here we go opening with “Seeing Everything” your immediately taken back to the days of Lush and Curve very definitely hitting that Indie pop vein. Next up “Arriving alive” again hit those gorgeous indie pop links, check out bands like the Sea Urchins, the Orchids, the Sweetest Ache all released on Sarah Records to get a feel of where these influences appear to be grounded, this is seriously good stuff, the pop hooks slightly at odds with the subject matter.

There’s almost a Buzzcock’s feel to “The Glitter and the Glue” before we’re into the title track “Floating above everything else” again that almost steel guitar sound, of those jangling Indie pop riffs really hold you. “To a London sunrise”  follows that classic dream pop vibe, as does “echo everywhere”, in fairness this is a superb LP if you like a bit of shoe gazing/dream pop stand-out tracks for me “Forevers where you are” the overlapping guitar work is superb and LP closer “Shine a light” is a bit special, no wonder Spiritualized Jason Pierce is such a fan!!!

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Author: Nev Brooks