The lord of the isles and the poetess. Three years ago, Neil McDonald aka Lord Of The Isles and poetess Ellen Renton first teamed up for an EP, on which Renton contributed lyrics to two tracks. Now they have continued their collaboration with a full-length album. With his elegiac, expansive
productions, you could even say that Lord Of The Isles’ tracks, which are calm and at the same time convey a quiet longing, are poetic enough in themselves and don’t need to be supplemented with language. If the voices had been those that liked to talk incessantly, such a combination would probably have failed. However, the tone that Renton adopts here is not very different from that of McDonald. Both have a laconic quality. Where the music from Lord of the Isles is sparse, Renton is restrained with her words, waiting halfway through the song, as she does on »A Discovery«, before she begins, speaking with restraint, almost stoic calm. Both leave enough gaps, enough air to breathe, so that the two layers don’t get in each other’s way. Certainly, Renton’s poems could just as easily stand on their own, just as McDonald has amply demonstrated in the past that he can manage perfectly well without guests. But a groove emerges here on »My Noise Is Nothing« that makes you think about things in a different way, the lines from Renton’s mouth revealing a rhythm that is ultimately more than it would be minus the other.
