Hidden within Meeting People Is Easy, the Radiohead “rockumentary” made in the wake of OK Computer, there lies some footage of Thom Yorke singing ‘How To Disappear Completely’, completely acoustic, for a concert hall populated only by cleaners and sound engineers. This kind of direct, no-frills emotional connection, sung at once for everyone and for no-one in particular, is what T E Morris is striving for on And You Were The Hunter. Released on his own Olynka Records, these are a frustratingly unremarkable sparse 43 minutes, with dips of folk-rock mediocrity but peaks of occasional beauty.

Morris is principally known for his regular band, Her Name Is Calla, renowned for their bold, cinematic and challenging music, and who also boast one hell of a live show. Calla are an unforgiving, exciting and distinctive band – their most recent album, The Quiet Lamb, concluded with a three part epic worthy of some kind of post-rock opera (a statement intended as a compliment, rather than a Muse-referencing reproach). This kind of songwriting does not feature on Morris’ first solo album. Instead, And You Were The Hunter switches between acoustic confessions and more feedback-inspired excursions. And whilst the record still demands patience, it too often does so not with a surplus but with a dearth of ideas. There are moments on this album, in particular ‘Haven’ and ‘Provenance’, where it appears that the decision to turn up the volume comes at the expense of accessibility and complexity, and one cannot help be disappointed by a sharp lack of ambition – a charge that could never been thrown at Morris’s work with Her Name Is Calla.

Yet Tom Morris is a very talented songwriter, as his day job has consistently proven, and there are moments here which deserve a great deal of attention. ‘Bright Spark’ is a haunting and comforting opener, and ‘Aliana 1’ is a late highlight, laid back and lovely. ‘Memorial Day 1’ is begging to be chosen for an end-of-series montage of some kind. Yet ‘The Long Distance Runner’, one of Morris’ oldest songs, featured in his live sets for years now and featured on this album, is indicative of the problems with the record as a whole. Initially beautifully restrained, with a string section even worthy of comparison to Josh T. Pearson’s definitive ‘Woman, When I’ve Raised Hell’, it culminates in misjudged steel-string bashing in search of some kind of a climax.

I was lucky enough to catch T E Morris at the Union Chapel earlier this year in Islington, as part of the brilliant Daylight Music sessions. In that intimidating gothic setting, he shone. What was lost in the studio can’t be known, but it has made And You Were The Hunter drag instead flow, flatline when it could soar. Morris is undoubtedly capable of those ‘How To Disappear’ moments – it’s a great shame that for the time being, they remain only moments.