Drink has a way of coaxing slurred words – life’s oft secret narratives – out of our sobriety. Most whisky-tales are incoherent ugly dribbling phrases but whatever his poison, Jack Hayter’s haggard voice, although lethargic, is compulsive and incredibly absorbing. Ultimately a folk record, Sucky Tart plays with an expression in which Hayter’s character and disposition comes across as wise, temperamental and at times almost intoxicated. Its angst for teetotalism ignores the strict ideology of modern folk, rejecting the sweet country-sun bled vibes for odd, vintage tales matched with unexpected cartoonish sounds.

Sucky Tart marks the first release of label Audio Anithero’s 2011 ‘Specialists in Commercial Suicide’ series. Novel in the obvious sense, Sucky Tart is indeed a specialist record: odd-ball and commercially strange. Hayter’s fragmented voice recognising this; a more-or-less ‘fuck it approach’, smugly nonchalant countering folk and its retro-vague sheen with eccentric and deadly-weird noises.

Before the EP and after touring with Darren Hayman, Hayter suffered a heart attack. Yet, Sucky Tart isn’t the aftershock or a bold reaction to this predictably life-changing apparent – it’s stillness and apathetic nature neutralizes any anxieties. Here, Hayter breaks away from his past – both in terms of personal events and past bands (Spongefinger and Hefner) but also the trad-view of folk.

His creeping collection of tracks bond realism and twisted fantasy elements, ‘Doll’s House’ and first number ‘I Stole the Cutty Sark’ hold the pragmatic-meaning; but it’s the twisted chimera, the wobbles and vibrations that give Sucky Tart the kudos, the imagination to break from the usually tough (and boring/overdone/tiresome) grasps of folk.

It may go unnoticed, slide past the hype and balls of 2011’s anticipated early releases but the reaction it derives; the confused nose-curl, the perplexity it inspires is needed and above all fun – even in a scene where we’re all so, so, sooooo serious. Sucky Tart is what this heavy, cold-mumbling January needs. Lighten up.