From Brutal Assaults to Bathetic Handclaps: Ally Craig

I am an enormous admirer of contrasts in music. Often, my favourite songs are those that splice together wildly disparate sections or musical features.

Ally Craig understands contrast. From brutal guitar assault to sudden, precipitous silence; from all-out drum battery to bathetic handclaps. He understands contrast well enough to be witty with it.

Pilot Inspektor is the first half of Ally Craig's recently released double-A-side. You can listen to it on last.fm, or download the mp3 free from his MySpace page. If there is one song of the day you download this week, make it Mr Craig's.

Things to listen out for

• Teeter-inducing silences
  
• Phrases that go on one beat longer than you expect
  
• Them witty handclaps
  
• A very clever mimickry of Beck-like production techniques in the guitars
  
• The contrast between the extreme rhythmicism of the verses and the Greenwoodian guitar squalling and wailing of the tremolo-picked solo section
  
• The lyrics
  

This post marks the start of Ally Craig season here on Heavy Soil … For we'll be reviewing the single as a whole (on sale here) very soon.