And The Bird Said: Cut Me Open And Sing Me by Prairie

From the artist's name to the album's title to individual track names, the growing sense of nature under threat is compelling. The throbbing noise that quietly builds to cacophony on opener Boy's First Kill, like a rising heart rate in line with an impending sense of danger, epitomises this threat. Hunting for food versus mass production is a very real dichotomy facing future generations. As listeners, we're accidental voyeurs in nature but we're also roaming the wild plains of multi-instrumentalist Marc Jacobs' mind. This switching between real scenes, imagined horrors and unexplained memories is played out across nine tracks of largely instrumental sound; guitars and synths working in earnest tandem. Field recordings, vocals (on second track Cut Me Open) and a soaring sense of emotion relate a bittersweet ode to the impending death of nature; lurching from one form of wild to another, tempered only by variations in tone and melody. Harsh, sometimes jarring sounds offset by gentler, enveloping passages is a repeating pattern across the 40 minute playing time, keeping extremes contained and repeat listens easy.