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David Thomas Broughton - Onwards We Trudge

David Thomas Broughton’s off-kilter folk is all about the slow-burn; coaxing melodies and oddly gorgeous vocals from a shuffling music box of acoustic guitars, looping pedals and bargain-bin drum machines. The result is tooth-achingly gorgeous. He has been lumped into the ‘freak-folk’ enclosure and in doing so shines amid the offerings of those traditionally proffered under this soft-centered appellation. Taking handsome dollops of Nick Drake, John Fahey and Antony and the Johnsons, Broughton’s quixotic touch is writ large above all his compositions. Broughton leads us in through some tip-toeing guitar loops that gradually unfurl into a pink-hued vocal that recalls Antony and the Johnson’s in its stark, alien delivery, whilst coming across as appealingly naïve, representing that fabled song-writing territory where the innovative does not overshadow the enjoyable - but instead coexists. Or something.