Released by Constellation records, home to Godspeed You! Black Emporer, Do Make Say Think, Polmo Polpo etc etc, Eric Chenaux comes from a fine musical lineage. Rather than many of his label mates’ penchant for the epic and the fractious, Eric makes lilting acoustic guitar led ballad music that is riddled with clichés and utterly heart breaking. Joined on this record by Canadian synth+keyboard virtuoso Ryan Driver this record (his third for Constellation) see’s him on cracking form. Similarly to other top notch singers of love The Magnetic Fields Eric can tackle a Valentines card sentiment and imbibe it with such fragile mystery and hazy glow that he can move from the trite to the sublime in the flick of his wrist and the trill of his throat.

Opening with the vintage synth bathed vignette ‘And So We Say’ it’s immediately apparent that there’s a timelessness to Warm Weather. It could have been recorded last week or in the early 70s, in the best possible way. Led by his world weary sigh and backed by synth, piano, double bass, acoustic guitar chords and some gorgeous swooping lead guitars, Eric sings “and so we say our feelings don’t matter, that’s our only hope”. This sets the musical and lyrical scene for the album, eschewing full drum kit in favour of warm beds of synth textures, guitars and stripped down percussion, forming instrumental backings that allow the album to swell and swoon it’s way along.

‘Warm Charleston’ picks things up with strident major key acoustic refrain, multi harmony part and keening folk violin. The meeting of vintage electronica and British folk balladry recalls John Martyn’s classic Solid Air, surely an influnce on Eric’s husky vocal. Other singers that spring to mind include Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, particularly on the gorgeous ‘Lavalliere #2’. Magic also happens on the record when the instrumental passages are allowed to breath, such as the beauty that is the outro to ‘New Boon Harp’. The production throughout is perfect, unobtrusive and subtle, with enough character to keep it far from bland. Quite how he managed to make the guitar sound so close to a bagpipe on ‘Mynah Bird’ is a mystery to me.

It’s great to hear Eric’s voice set against female backing on ‘Ronnie-Mary’ and it brings up a whole new layer of musical engagement that I’d like to hear more of. The song also features one of my favourite lyrics of the album: “I used to have dreams that I drowned deep in the sea, I’d wake up at night and throw on all the lights, it’s been years since these visions have haunted me, these years with Ronnie-Mary”. The abstract poeticism continues through ‘Cool Down’: “I’m your crooked little arrow, you’re my bony old bow”, there’s a summery west coast chime to the piano of ‘Cool Down’ that recalls Joni Mitchell’s Blue and it’s the lightest moment on the album.

Ending on the couplet of farfisa driven lullabye ‘Warm Weather’ and finale track of 70s country rock twang ‘Cold Dream’, this a quiet victory of subtlety and refined musicianship with a warm, cold, hazy, clear sighted set of developed contradictions and heart breaking directness. If this record doesn’t move you, you must surely have a lump of stone lodged where most have a beating heart.