EP Review :: The Graphite Set :: These Streets

The Graphite Set

'These Streets' (Thumbscrew Music)

June 3 2013 (Download + limited 12” vinyl)

7/10


Words: Dave Beech


Artist? Musician? Contemporary bohemian? Lucy Buchanan, better known by her stage name The Graphite Set, could easily be considered as all three. Immersing herself in both the music and art worlds from a young age, it was inevitable that the two should meet. After studying Illustration in London (get the band name now?) Buchanan enveloped herself in the city's local music scene and with the addition of Duncan Brown (guitar), Grundy Le Zimbra (bass) and Scott Skinner (Drums) The Graphite Set as it is now came to fruition.

Despite only being a full band for less than half a year, The Graphite Set are set to realise their forthcoming début EP entitled 'These Streets', and those who've already caught the band in action will know roughly what the records holds in store for them.

Spread over the course of the four tracks 'These Streets' is a wonderfully introspective and soulful record. From the brooding aesthetic of titular track 'These Streets', which swells and contracts underneath Buchanan's effortlessly silky vocal to the delicate and understated 'In Your Eyes' which asserts a level of candidness not afforded by other tracks.

Vocally, Buchanan is not of this era. Drawing on the likes of Jefferson Airplane and PJ Harvey, she distils a sexy kind of archaism which she manages to paradoxically make as exciting and as fresh as the aforementioned bands would have sounded 40 and 20 years ago respectively. Musically however, 'These Streets' is as much about the notes that aren't played as those that are. 'I See No Lies' especially seems to have a firm understanding and a musical spacial awareness rarely exhibited in bands as fresh-faced as The Graphite Set. This understanding allows for a greater sense of emotion to be conveyed across the course of the record, something only furthered by Buchanan impactive vocal work.

There's certainly something different about The Graphite Set, something one can't immediately put their finger on until 'These Streets' has washed over you three, four or even five times. It's the combination of expressive lyricism, soulful delivery and a contemporary archaicness which would sound just as at home in the counter-cultural fields of Woodstock as it would in backstreet dives of today's London. Impassioned and emphatic, sexy and at times ominous, Lucy Buchanan et al have managed to go back in time and drag an aesthetic of yesteryear kicking and screaming in to the contemporary. And it's one hell of a journey.