(Blow Up/Creative Vibes)

The perfect travelling companion

Paul Fleming is Baltic Fleet, and Baltic Fleet is brilliant. The album is a collection of songs written and recorded on the road, whilst playing keyboards for Echo & The Bunnymen. Each track carries the spacious melancholy of Sigur Ros, while travelling forward with the motorik intensity of NEU!. Referenced also are the re-imagined funk break-beats of DJ Shadow, along with the cinematic sampling of The Doves. The press release will tell you all of this, but I’m not merely being lazy: Baltic Fleet is a study in auteurism. As much as hotel rooms, tour buses and planes effected Fleming’s compositions, so too must have his iPod – the modern traveller’s constant companion. All of the influence is plainly obvious, but not in a plagiaristic way. Baltic Fleet is a host of marvellously concise, highly inspired, and likely spontaneous compositions. It captures easily the mixed emotions of constant relocation, while referencing its most popular soundtracks in a complementary fashion. It’s perfect iPod fodder.

JAKEB SMITH

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