Things have changed in the music world recently. It used to be that if you were a musician with time on your hands you'd go slightly mental between tours, take a bunch of drugs, wind up in a rehab establishment, leave said establishment and tell the press of your "drug hell". The next step was to reconvene with your band and make an album about your drug hell whilst re-establishing your connections and rediscovering just what made your drug hell so awesome in the first place.These days if you're a musician and you've got a few hours to spare, heading off into the country to find yourself and record a solo album is the thing to do. It worked for Bon Iver after all, and now it would appear that similar downtime has paid dividends for Wintersleep's Paul Murphy.A Christmas break, some scotch and a few vivid dreams have combined perfectly and conspired to inspire Murphy. Those dreams predominantly featured his grandparents, and as such Postdata is a musing on the importance of memory and family. In fact Paul is joined by his brother Michael on the album, and they recorded it at home in Nova Scotia; which rather drives home the familial nature of the project. This album was recorded as a present for his mother, and is clearly a wildly personal album, and yet the experiences it deals with are so universal that it will resonate deeply with anyone who has the good fortune to hear it.Wisely eschewing the notion of a gabba tribute to their grandparents, Postdata is, as you might expect, a finely crafted folk album. Unlike a lot of folk influenced material from the States recently, this is harsh, bare bones stuff. It is stark and has little in the way of production based flourishes to distract from any of the albums themes. Murphy's voice is central and unflinching even when the songs are drenched in emotion, and they frequently are.There is plenty to be affected by here. The album opens with the appropriately dreamlike 'Lazarus', which is clearly about the memory of the Murphy's grandparents. But it's also about the fleeting nature of being and the idea of memory slowly fading over time.Unlike the warmth of the opening track, 'In Chemicals' is a complete contrast. A basic guitar arrangement accompanied by some pointed keyboards provides the backdrop for what can only be described as an ambiguous, but disturbing lyric. Clearly not all these dreams were pleasant as images of bruises, bondage and death begin to make themselves known.'Tracers' is probably the highlight of the album, as Murphy plays tricks with time and memory, following his grandparents through their lives, from to their teenage years towards dotage, and back again, with the lines that age their skin providing the thread that ties their memories together. It's a haunting beautiful moment, and although it's clearly a personal song, it's feels entirely inclusive.'Tobias Grey' is another fabulous moment. A character portrait is cleverly created with a few keen observations and carefully chosen words. It is an exploration of loss and madness which is staggering in its lyrical efficiency and capacity to the hit the mark so perfectly.Loss, memory and death are dealt with beautifully on the closing tracks. 'Warning', and 'Drift' are sad, but shot through with a warmth that fills these songs with pathos. 'The Coroner' meanwhile tries to be matter of fact about death but still has a trembling bottom lip which gives it away.The truth is that this could be an unrelenting bleak album, dealing as it does with aging, memory, loss and death, but because it comes from a place of love, it works even in its most tragic moments.Download 'Tobias Grey' and 'In Chemicals' via the official Postdata website.

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