RUSTIN MAN Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Paul Webb could not have picked a more apt name to release music under. An old time-y mood drips from every part of "Clockdust", which is packed full of tracks that tell real and very recognisable narratives - forsaking complex metaphors for heart on sleeve honesty. Perhaps best exemplified on the single 'Jackie's Room', a shuffling, jazz-nuanced number that tells us about a relationship in which the yarn spinner explains his view that his partner will never grow old so long as he desires her. While the words may often cut straight to the chase, instrumentally this is a far denser and more complicated beast. Even when the arrangements are comparatively stripped, there's either an expansive or intelligent feel to things. Take the intro drop on 'Kinky Living', which sounds as though New Orleans has met the Badlands. Impossible not to love, let's leave it at that.

Review: Over the past 15 years of releasing records it's been a rare sighting to see Paul Webb's music as Rustin Man not up and alongside his partner in sound, Portishead singer Beth Gibbons. With a rich history of putting out music as the bass player in Talk Talk, Drift Code for Domino presents Webb with a fully loaded debut solo album. There's plenty of blues and jazzed laced throughout the LP to be appreciated alongside country western motifs that make you want to fashion yourself an underbite and chew on a some wheat grass. Slightly gospel, wavering croons and storytelling are to be heard amidst the charming clunky-clink of a salon's piano keys rattled in a room of smokey vocals. Something to be savoured.