What does Robin Guthrie sound like?

Taking his dream pop guitar layers into the ambient world.

The review of ‘Atlas EP’ by Robin Guthrie

Nearly 45 years after the Coteau Twins formed, Scottish songwriter Robin Guthrie returns to music again and his trademark dreamy guitar signal chains. This four track EP focuses on reflective tones and the romanticism of time and space. Robin was travelling post-pandemic and found an old radio. When attempting to tune it in, many of the stations were now missing. Thinking about those lost stations in distance and time, ‘Atlas’ was born.

The four tracks nail the feeling of nostalgia and ennui for something you may never have heard or truly known about. The title track opens the EP with vast panoramic guitar atmospherics. Calming, vast ethereal tones throb and pulse slowly like moments of zen slipping through your fingers. ‘Metropol’ is a weighty and bassy slow twist of time and fate with long-tail atmospheric guitar overtures. The opening duo are like sister songs and so are the latter pair too. ‘Without a Word’ brings in dewy electric guitars that glisten backed by brushed percussion like a swaying metronome. ‘La Perigrina’ layers the guitars with watery keyboards and organs in a bluesy cinematic emboldened version of the previous track. They work well together.

Robin Guthrie’s dreampop guitar textures sound lush in an ethereal post-rock ambient haze: short, sweet, immersive and shimmering. Fans of Robin’s sound will feel right at home and whilst this isn’t strictly the Cocteau Twins sound, it’s a parallel road to an equally heavenly place.

Recommended track: Atlas

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