MATT BERRY

Kill The Wolf: 10th Anniversary Edition ACID JAZZ

Analogue-loving songwriter’s 2013 album intriguingly expanded.

Since signing to Acid Jazz in 2011, Matt Berry has built an eclectic back catalogue, using his collection of vintage instrumentation to channel a love of acid folk, bucolic prog, movie and TV themes and soundtracks, psychedelia and plenty of points beyond. Kill The Wolf – his second album on the label, reissued here in two-LP format – convinced any remaining cynics that he was more than an actor and voiceover artist indulging in an off-duty hobby, and this reissue offers a dozen or more extra tracks to further shed light on his creative back pages.

The original set is a pretty timeless affair in any case, with Berry’s penchant for bewitching sounds illuminating tidy songcraft. Beautifully meandering analogue synths float around the nineminute Solstice as it channels the kind of eerie atmosphere Goblin used to specialise in, while Devil Inside Me is punctuated by dizzy celtic fiddle. Elsewhere, drowsy sunrise horns and plucked raindrops of harp haunt the backdrop of Fallen Angel, soon joined by cooing siren song to colour in Berry’s acoustic musings.

Gather Up remains an arresting thing, an invocation of earthy ingredients that sounds like it escaped direct from one of the alternative cuts of The Wicker Man.

The extras are worth anyone’s time. You That I See is one of the couple of alternate versions of Devil Inside Me, this early demo possessing a croaky-voiced charm before veering off into an instrumental odyssey. The campfire incantation Fire Chant Alt, replete with crackling flames, is another intriguing road not taken.

The 60s-style R&B diversion Food Chain Blues – wherein he lists pretty much what the title suggests – maintains the rural theme of the album, but like a lot of Berry’s deeper cuts, it’s the kind of thing to be found on a battered old LP from a charity shop, bought because of the kitschy photo on the sleeve. Nothing likely to make it onto daytime radio, then, but appreciated by those whose tastes lean more towards the esoteric.